Figure of Hate

Chapter Seven

The castle brooded at the top of Winchester's High Street like a massive grey hen sitting on a nest of buildings. A circular room in one of the towers was used by the Chief Justiciar as his official chamber when he was in the city, which shared with London the functions of England's capital. Though Hubert Walter was also Archbishop of Canterbury, his episcopal duties played second fiddle to the virtual running of the country, as he was regent of England in all but name. A soldier as much as a priest, he had been left to bring back the English Crusaders from the Holy Land after the King had left on his ill-fated voyage home, but on reaching Sicily he heard that Richard had been imprisoned in Austria and Germany. Hubert hurried to visit him there, then returned to England to help retrieve the situation, mainly by devising schemes to raise money and to keep the peace in a troubled country where Prince John was fomenting rebellion.

As he sat behind his parchment-cluttered table, he took a moment to stare absently through a window slit at a patch of cold blue October sky and wonder why he was so devoted to his king, Richard with the lion's heart. He accepted that the man was selfish, arrogant, greedy and often cruel, but he could also be charming, recklessly generous and ridiculously forgiving, as he been towards his brother John after his failed rebellion. As a monarch, Richard's main concern was with France, and though he had been born in Oxford, England remained nothing more than a colony to him, from which he could extort taxes and men to support his campaigns in Palestine and France. Richard had never bothered to learn to speak English, his queen, Berengaria, had never set foot in the country, and after spending only four months of his reign in England it seemed certain that he would never return, leaving Hubert to administer the realm and raise the vast sums that were needed to pay off his ransom and finance his armies. The justiciar had been thinking a few moments ago of his old fellow campaigner, John de Wolfe, another example of the blind loyalty that the monarch seemed able to engender in the most unromantic of people.

Black John was not over-endowed with either imagination or much of a sense of humour, but was brave to the point of foolhardiness and almost painfully trustworthy.

It was these qualities which had decided Hubert, with the full approval of the King, to set John up as coroner in Devon, where he could keep an eye on that scheming potential traitor Richard de Revelle and the band of incipient rebels clustered around Bishop Henry Marshal and some of the barons, such as the de la Pomeroys. The threat posed by Prince John seemed to have abated recently, but it was essential to keep a reliable pair of eyes and ears open down in the West to forestall any secret plots. The recent removal of de Revelle as sheriff made things easier, thought the justiciar — but he doubted that the man's political ambitions had evaporated, and he must still be watched.

A chancery clerk came in with a fresh bundle of manuscripts and laid them on a corner of the table.

'These have just come from Shrewsbury and Chester, your Grace,' he said in an oily voice. Sliding the strap of a leather pouch from his shoulder, he laid it before the archbishop with something akin to reverence.

'And this has arrived from Portsmouth, on the latest cog from Harfleur.'

After he had bowed himself out, a habit that always irritated the blunt-natured Hubert, the justiciar opened the pouch and took out a parchment roll from which dangled the heavy royal seal. Cutting the tapes and cords with a dagger that he had personally taken from the body of a slain Saracen, he settled back and read the latest missive from the court at Rouen. Some of it was in the King's own hand, for, unlike some of his royal forebears, Richard could wield a quill almost as well as a sword.

Hubert sat for some time reading the bulky dispatches, his brow furrowing from time to time as some particularly difficult problem was propounded.

He was a lean, wiry man, and dressed in a plain grey tunic he looked quite unlike the usual over-fed, overdressed prelate, the only concession to his religious stares being a small silver cross hanging around his neck. Eventually, he got to the end of the roll and dropped it back on to the table, reaching instead for a jug of wine and a pewter cup.

Sipping the rich red blood of the Loire valley, he stared again through the embrasure, though his thoughts were far from the streak of sky visible through the slit. As he mulled over the contents of the missive from the King, his mind's eye travelled westwards to Wales, and then once again settled on the dark stubble and forbidding features of the ever faithful John de Wolfe.

The group of newcomers stood blocking the path to the churchyard gate, glowering at the coroner's trio, who had turned to face them.

'There's nothing in this for you, John. You were sent for in error, there was some misunderstanding on the part of the bailiff.'

De Revelle's voice was haughty and condescending, as if he were still the sheriff, dismissing some servant.

'And what misunderstanding can occur over the murder of a manor-lord, Richard? Can you mean that Hugo Peverel is still alive?'

John's tone was deceptively mild as he tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, but privately he was livid that this bloody man had turned up to haunt him, after he had thought he had got rid of him for ever.

They were still standing outside the church porch, the girl now having ceased wriggling in the grip of her captors, her eyes round with bemusement as she found herself the centre of attention of all these high-born men. Richard had pushed himself to the fore and stood between Ralph and Odo, as if he were the new lord Of Sampford rather than one of the Peverels. Joel stepped up on to an old grave mound to stand on Odo's left while behind them the bailiff and steward waited anxiously to see the outcome of this confrontation.

Outside the gate, a cluster of villagers were gathering, mouths agape as the events of this dramatic day continued to unfold.

Odo's measured words attempted to reduce the tension that was becoming as tight as a drawn bowstring.

'We did not intend to bother you with this matter, Sir John. It's a long ride from Exeter and this is a matter that our manor can deal with. You will appreciate that the circumstances of my brother's death are not those which we would want broadcast around the county.'

Ralph hurriedly forced his own opinion into the dialogue.

'I want no outside interference, Crowner, this is purely a family issue!'

His words were less gracious than those of his more mature elder brother and he substituted 'I' for 'we' in his relentless pursuit of the inheritance.

De Wolfe scowled at them both, resenting Ralph's rudeness.

'What you may want is of no consequence! It is the King's peace that rules us all, whether you like it or not. Unless any of you are minded to defy the laws of King Richard and his council?'

He turned his glare full on to de Revelle, and no one was in any doubt as to his insinuation about the former sheriff's political leanings.

'What are you doing here, may I ask?' he snapped.

'You no longer have any official authority.' Richard's thick skin allowed him to continue as if he were still in charge and the coroner was the interloper.

'Though it's none of your business, John, I am here as a friend and neighbour at the express invitation of the Peverel family. They naturally thought that my experience of such crises might be of help to them.' John had to bite his tongue to prevent himself from observing that his brother-in-law had not the slightest experience of dealing with sudden deaths, having been content when sheriff to4et others do all the dirty work, while he remained in his chamber thinking up more ways of embezzling from the county taxes. Drowning his irritation with a deep breath, he turned to Odo,

who, though he had never met him before, he already recognised as the most reasonable of the brothers.

'Sir, will you tell me what exactly has been happening here? I have had only the bare bones of the matter from your reeve.'

Forestalling Ralph, the elder Peverel explained how Hugo had gone missing the previous evening and had eventually been found hidden under the hay in the ox byre, with savage Wounds in his back. With neither of the ladies present, — he felt less inhibited in explaining the circumstances.

'My brother, like so many other active men, was fond of slaking his surplus virility on common drabs like this girl here.'

'A common and understandable habit, even to be found among senior law officers!' sneered de Revelle, unable to resist a jibe at John's affair with his Welsh tavern-keeper.

De Wolfe again resisted the temptation to observe that if they were talking about the lusts of senior law officers, he had twice caught de Revelle with Exeter whores. Instead he once more applied himself to Odo.

'Though I understand from your reeve that the proper procedure of the first finder raising the hue and cry throughout the village was carried out — and that your bailiff quite rightly lost no time in reporting the death to the coroner — you have already committed two breaches of the law!'

The three brothers stared at the coroner, puzzled that anyone should even consider challenging their absolute authority on their own manor.

'And what may they be?' demanded Ralph.

'First, it looks uncommonly as if you have violated the right of every person to seek sanctuary. In addition, the body should have been left where it was found until my arrival, which I am told has not been done here.'

There was a simultaneous gabble of protest from the Peverels in which de Revelle joined in enthusiastically.

'Do you seriously expect us to leave the lord of the manor face down in his own ox byre?' raged Ralph.

'Really, Sir John, you are a Norman knight yourself.' snapped Odo. 'Would you allow your closest relative to stay more than five minutes in such a degrading situation, for villein and serfs to come gaping at?'

De Wolfe glowered at them. 'I did not make the law, sirs, but I have been appointed to see that they are enforced and that I shall do!' he said stubbornly.

'Then you are an even greater damned fool than I thought!' bleated Richard offensively. 'Laws are made for the underlings of this world, not those of us who control it. Why do we need waste time on this tragic matter, when it is so patently obvious that this slut is the culprit?'

John ignored him and turned to the girl and the two men still hanging on to her arms.

'Let her go, I doubt that she'll attack you,' he said sarcastically to the armourer and the hound-master.

Then he addressed Agnes, his tone milder as he looked down at the maid, whose mood swung between fear-and indignation. 'I see no point in you going back into the church, girl. There's no need for you to seek sanctuary at this point. I will see that matters are conducted properly.'

'They'll hang me for sure, sir,' she said sullenly. 'I'm only safe in there.'

The coroner nodded understandingly. 'You were illegally dragged from sanctuary, so I promise that if things go ill with you, you can return here. But for now, you must go home until I come to ask you some questions. D'you understand?'

She nodded, but she was still in the grip of her captors, who looked uncertainly from the coroner to the group barring his way to the gate.

'This is beyond your jurisdiction, Sir John!' boomed Odo. 'Have you the power to override our wishes?'

'John, you are insufferable!' brayed de Revelle. 'You have no right to interfere in this way, trying to ride roughshod over ancient manor laws!'

Gwyn moved closer to his master as the four men took a step nearer John and his hand moved gently to the hilt of his sword, but the coroner thrust his dark head aggressively towards his brother-in-law.

'No right? I've every right, and if you deny it you'll answer to the King and his ministers!' he snarled. 'I was appointed to keep the pleas of the Crown and part of those duties is the investigation of deaths from foul play. Another of my tasks is the taking of confessions from sanctuary-seekers and administering the abjuration of the realm. Both seem very relevant here and neither are any part of manorial jurisdiction!'

'Dealing with breaches of the peace is sheriff's business,' bleated Richard.

'And you are no longer the sheriff.' retorted John. 'Not that you did much about keeping the peace when you were one! It so happens that the new sheriff has deputed me to combine his duties with the prosecution of my inquests — with which the justiciar concurs, I might add.'

This was a fairly loose interpretation of Henry de Furnellis's expressed desire not to become involved with casework, but it would suffice to justify John's free hand in investigations. He scowled at the three brothers in turn, defying them to contradict him, especially as he had deliberately laboured the fact that he was a direct agent of the King's chief minister.

'Now, to business! I need to examine the corpse of your unfortunate kinsman and also to see the place where his body was discovered, before you so recklessly moved it.'

He swung away, and the tension of the moment subsided sufficiently for Gwyn to relax his fingers from around his sword hilt. The coroner looked beyond the indignant group in front of him and beckoned to a couple of women who were among the dozen or so villagers gawping over the churchyard hedge.

'Take this girl back to her home. Tell the family to keep her there until I come to talk to her.' Under the sheer force of de Wolfe's personality, the brothers reluctantly stood aside. Grim faced, they watched while Agnes was taken by a pair of good-wives out of the gate and up the road towards the squalid cottage where she lived. Then John strode down the few yards of path towards the porch, followed by Gwyn and Thomas. As he passed the two men who had dragged the girl from the church, he jabbed a forefinger into the chest of Robert Longus, the bearded armourer.

'I want words with you later on another matter! You are now under attachment for failing to attend my inquest in Exeter.'

Without waiting for a response, he vanished into the building with his two assistants, followed more slowly by the three brothers and Richard de Revelle. The rotund Irish priest had scurried ahead, and when John's eyes had adjusted to the dim light coming from a few shuttered slits in the wooden walls, he saw that Father Patrick was standing before a simple altar at the far end. The floor of beaten earth was empty of any furniture, but around the side walls were narrow benches for the old and infirm to rest during services, the rest of the congregation having to stand. There was no separate chancel, the church being a simple oblong, with a large wooden cross hanging on the east wall above the altar, between two of the window slits. The light from these fell on a wooden bier, a narrow table with carrying handles at each corner, on which lay a still shape under a linen sheet.

De Wolfe marched up to one side of this, Gwyn taking up a position opposite. Thomas stood at the foot, bending his knee and crossing himself jerkily, his eyes fixed reverently on the brass cross on the altar table.

As the coroner nodded to his officer to pull off the shroud, Ralph Peverel strutted forward in protest.

'Is this necessary, Crowner? Why can you not let my brother rest in peace?'

'Murder is murder, sir! Have you no desire to discover who took his life and see justice done to his killer?'

'Of course. But the deed has been done — what use is it to defile the dead further by your examination?'

His elder brother now came and put a restraining hand on Ralph's arm.

'The coroner has his duty to perform and we must tolerate anything which leads to the discovery of the perpetrator of this foul crime,' he said in a conciliatory tone, strengthening John's impression that, although a miserable sort of fellow, he was the most reasonable member of this prickly family. He had already dismissed the junior brother Joel as an immature and feckless young man.

Gwyn pulled the sheet back from the corpse's face and folded it down to lie across the feet. Hugo was dressed in a short tunic of dull yellow that came to mid-thigh, under which were woollen hose ending in pointed leather shoes. He wore a belt with a small dagger sheathed at the left side and a small scrip purse on the other. Wisps of hay and straw adhered to his clothing and his dark red hair.

'Can you not close his eyes, for decency's sake?' snapped Ralph, determined to be as critical as possible.

John bent to look closely at the blue eyes, which stared upward at the inside of the roof, where small birds chirruped and fluttered among the woven hazel withies that supported the thatch. The fronts of the orbs were already becoming flattened and cloudy with death, but otherwise the eyes were normal.

'No bleedings into the whites, nothing at all,' he muttered to Gwyn, and with his fingers he drew down the lids. The rest of the face had the pallor of death, and when he pushed down on the point of the chin he felt that the jaw was locked solid.

'He's stone cold and as rigid as a plank,' he announced, half to himself. 'Been dead many hours, that's for sure.'

'We don't need a coroner to tell us that,' sneered Joel. 'He was found earlier this morning and has been missing since last night!'

De Wolfe ignored him and nodded again at his officer. Gwyn, a veteran of scores of similar procedures, began his ritual of exposing the rest of the body to his master. He undid the belt and pulled up the tunic and undershirt, revealing the separate legs of the hose, supported by laces tied to a thong around the waist. John turned to the brothers and their servants, who were clustered behind Thomas at the foot of the bier.

'There's no need for you all to be here, if it distresses you.'

His attempt at concern for their feelings fell on deaf ears, as they all stood their ground, scowling, defying anyone to try to dismiss them from their own church.

'He's all bloody underneath,' grunted Gwyn, as he tugged the back of the tunic upward to the shoulders.

The surface of the bier was slick with blood, which began to drip to the floor as the body was moved.

'We'll have him over the other way,' ordered the coroner. The family had been offered their chance to leave and he was not inclined to skimp his examination on their account. Hugo Peverel was a large man and his corpse was heavy, but the muscular Gwyn turned it as if it were a mere side of bacon, and laid it on its face.

'Soaked in blood!' commented the Cornishman cheerfully, grinning at Thomas as the little clerk blanched. Even after more than a year in the coroner's service, he was still squeamish at the sight of gore.

The back of the tunic and shirt were dark red, almost black, in colour, and at the sides they were stiff where the blood had dried. 'There was nothing like that amount of blood visible when we saw him in the ox byre,' ventured Walter Hog, the bailiff.

'But I was told that he was found face down,' snapped de Wolfe. 'Is that right?'

'He was indeed, I'll never forget the sight,' answered Odo, tensely.

'Then you wouldn't expect him to bleed much, until he was turned on to his back,' retorted the coroner irritably. 'Most of this blood issued from him after death. That's why it was remiss of you to move him. I need to see bodies in their original state.'

'What difference can that make?' sneered Ralph. 'He was stabbed to death, even our village idiot could have told you that.'

John glared at him, thrusting his head forward like an angry crow.

'If you've nothing helpful to say, I suggest you keep your mouth shut, sir! If I could be sure that he had not bled much before his body was interfered with, it would tell me that he was stabbed where he lay, probably face down. And that he died quickly!'

'How can you say that, Crowner?' asked Odo, with a trace of genuine interest in his voice.

'The blood has stained his garment only above the waist. If he had been on his feet, even staggering about for a few moments, it would have trickled down over his buttocks and thighs.'

Gwyn nodded sagely. Both he and the coroner prided themselves on being self-taught experts on death and injury, after twenty years on various battlefields, as well as a year investigating sudden death in Devon.

De Wolfe turned his attention to the back of the body, revealed now that the clothing was pulled up almost to Hugo's neck. It was a smeared mass of blood, with gobs of shiny clot adhering here and there. He turned to the priest, who was standing wringing his hands at the transformation of his church into a mortuary.

'Father Patrick, have you a cloth and some water we could use?'

The rotund cleric hurried away to a small door on the north side of the building, which opened into a small lean-to shelter that served as a sacristy and storeroom. Here, in addition to his second-best cassock and his service books, he had a broom made from a bundle of twigs, a wooden bucket and some cleaning rags for the altar cross.

'This is all I have, Crowner,' he said, offering a strip torn from an old surplice and some dirty water left in the bucket. Gwyn took them and carefully wiped away as much of the blood as he could from the skin between the dead man's shoulder blades. A ripple of suppressed horror went round the audience, which now also contained the reeve, the steward, the armourer and a couple of other manor officers. They saw a pattern of marks on the skin of the late lord's back which told of a violent attack.

'You'll need to make a note of these as soon as we've finished, Thomas,' commanded de Wolfe. He peered more closely, his big hooked nose coming within a foot of the bloody wounds.

'Six, no seven, stabs, both sides of the spine. All roughly in the same direction — the knife must have been held at about the same angle for them all.'

'Narrow blade, by the looks of it, Crowner. But not all the wounds are the same length.' Gwyn was unwilling to let his own expertise go unemployed.

'The length depends how far the knife was pushed in, if it was a tapered blade,' answered his master. 'But I agree, a smallish blade — the widest wound is well under an inch across.'

He clicked his fingers at his officer and pointed to Hugo's own dagger, resting in its sheath on the discarded belt. Gwyn pulled it out and showed it to his master.

'That certainly didn't cause these wounds,' he grunted. 'Double-edged and much too wide.' Having eliminated the dagger, de Wolfe now explored the depth of the stabs, and without hesitation rammed his forefinger into the biggest wound and pushed until his knuckle was against the skin.

'Goes deeply inside his chest, between the ribs,' he announced, before withdrawing the finger with a sucking sound. He absently wiped the blood with the soiled rag as he worked out something in his mind.

'The blade was held diagonally across the back, roughly in line with the ribs, so no bone was broken as it slipped between them. The killer must have been to the side of the victim, either right or left, when he struck — or she struck,' he added.

'A woman? Or a girl? That's the very thing we are suggesting!' snapped Ralph, with an I-told-you-so sneer.

De Wolfe shrugged. 'It may be unlikely, but I rule nothing out at this stage. It was a small knife such as women carry — and the force needed to slip a blade between the ribs, rather than smash through them, would literally have been child's play, let alone a woman's.'

Again there was a murmur of smug agreement among the brothers, who were only too eager to pin the blame on the laundry maid. As the coroner continued his examination, he found nothing else on the rest of the corpse, which he found interesting in itself.

'Not so much as a scratch on the hands or arms, so he made no effort to defend himself. Often an attacked man will fend off the blade with his forearm — or even grasp it to deflect it from his vital organs. There is nothing of that nature here.'

'And as the gentleman was an experienced tournament fighter, he would not have been taken easily,' Gwyn reminded him.

'Then my brother was obviously taken unawares by some cowardly assassin!' snapped Joel.

'Face down in the hay, he might well have been sleeping,' said John. 'Especially soon after having taking his pleasure with a girl.'

'Why is the skin dark red in places, but white over the shoulder blades?' demanded Odo, who seemed to have an inquiring streak in his nature.

'He has been lying on his back now for many hours, so the blood has settled to the lowest point,' explained de Wolfe. 'But lying on this hard bier has squeezed it from the shoulders and buttocks. Another reason for not moving the corpse until I had a chance to see it.' He turned his attention back to the sinister-looking cuts on the cadaver, and together with Gwyn poked and prodded at each gaping slit in the skin.

'D'you think that a few of the wounds show a blunter end?' he asked his officer.

Gwyn, pleased to be asked his opinion, nodded. 'This one — and this, almost certainly.' He pointed a grimy fingernail at the upper end of a couple of the injuries, where a slightly squared-off termination did not quite match the sharply pointed lower end. 'I reckon it was a single-edged blade, not a regular dagger with two cutting edges.'

The coroner nodded his agreement. 'A narrow knife, blunt along the back.'

Richard de Revelle was determined to be dismissive and obstructive.

'A great deduction, indeed!' he said sarcastically. 'There are probably forty such knives in this village alone. And for all we know, the killer might well be an outsider, creeping in here at night to thieve.' De Wolfe straightened up and stood with his fists resting on his sword belt. He would have liked to have used them to punch his arrogant brother-in-law on the nose, but restrained himself and said mildly, 'It's early days yet. Every small fact adds up when we are seeking a murderer.'

He nodded at Gwyn, who began to replace the clothing and lay the corpse face up on the bier, before covering it again with the sheet.

'I trust you have finished with poor Hugo now, Crowner?' said Odo, in a sepulchral voice.

'I have no need to examine his body again, certainly. But I will need to display it to the jury when I hold my inquest, as the law demands.'

'But surely we can go ahead with the funeral!' exclaimed Ralph. 'It is not decent to leave him above ground a moment longer than is necessary.'

The coroner shook his head emphatically. 'I am sorry, but that is not possible until I have held my inquiry and recorded it for the King's justices — when they next come to the county.'

'And when will this precious inquiry be held?' sneered de Revelle, determined to make things as difficult as possible.

'I will first have to speak to everyone who might have some information — which I'm afraid includes every member of the family and your manor-servants. Then anyone else in the village who may know something about this tragedy. As today is already well advanced, that will take until tomorrow morning, but I have to return to Exeter then, as I already have another inquest set for the afternoon.'

'So when are you coming back here?' demanded Joel.

'The day after tomorrow — Wednesday. You may arrange your burial for later that day. The weather is cool for October, there will be little problem with the body. Matters may have been more difficult in high summer. He can rest with dignity here before the altar.' The brothers and their neighbour, de Revelle, protested at the delay, but the coroner was implacable.

'Now I need to begin speaking to all those who might have some information for me,' said John brusquely. 'Starting with that girl Agnes.'

'It was very unwise of you to insist that she be released so easily from our arrest,' huffed Richard de Revelle. 'That may be the last we see of her!'

'And where could she go, might I ask?' countered John. 'She'd hardly be welcome in the next manor, or anywhere else around here — a runaway serf belonging to Sampford.' He turned his back on Richard and addressed Odo. 'I'll walk to where she lives now, if someone will show me where that is.'

'We'll accompany you, Crowner!' snapped Ralph. 'She is our serf, I need to interrogate her myself.'

Again John noted that the 'we' slipped into 'I' — and he also observed that Odo's scowl deepened at the lapse. There was little filial affection between these two, he thought.

'You are certainly entitled to speak to your subjects as much as you wish,' he said. 'But not when I am conducting my enquiries. I wish to speak to her alone — or at most, with her mother present.' The Peverels huffed and puffed, but de Wolfe was adamant.

'In that case, the bailiff can take you,' grunted Odo. 'We will return to the manor house to discuss the matter further with Sir Richard and our ladies.' With ill grace, the brothers and their steward left the church and a few moments later Walter Hog led the coroner and his assistants up the dusty track towards the western end of the village. Beyond the green they passed the manor house on their left, its stockade seeming to dominate the rest of the dismal village with menace, emphasising the downtrodden status of the folk who laboured to keep the Peverels in relative comfort. The whole place seemed shabby to John, especially in comparison with his home manor of Stoke-in-Teignhead, where his brother William prided himself on ensuring a decent living for both his freemen and his bondsmen. Here many of the houses were little better than hovels, with mouldy grass-grown thatch and in some cases, disintegrating walls where the cob had eroded from the frames on which it had been plastered. As he walked up the rough track, he noticed that many of the fences around the crofts were broken and had been roughly mended with branches and sticks to keep the livestock from straying.

There were a few decent houses, and the bailiff proudly pointed out one as his own and another as the dwelling of the reeve.

The dusty road sloped up towards the west, where it went on to Tiverton. On the left, behind the line of crofts and toffs, were strip fields running away at right angles until they reached the meadow and waste, which in turn gave way to the edge of the forest. On the other side of the road, the fields sloped down into the shallow valley that carried the mill-stream, beyond which was more waste ground until the trees began again. Above these, low hills filled the horizon, sloping up towards the distant edge of Exmoor, the green beginning to turn brown as the autumn advanced.

As the village began to peter out, the dwellings became smaller and even more dismal. These belonged to the cottars, inferior bondsmen who had no land allotment in the fields like the freemen and villeins, but eked out a living by working for the lord at the more menial tasks. They tended cattle and goats, did the fencing, milking, ditching and thatching and some of the ploughing and raking on the lord's demesne.

Others were labourers for the farrier, smith or miller, or cleaned the stables and byres and spread the dung on the fields.

The bailiff stopped at the last shack, a mere few hundred paces from where the dense trees closed in at the edge of the village.

'This is where Agnes lives. It's a poor place, I'm afraid,' announced Walter, with a trace of embarrassment.

There was a ragged thorn hedge around the quarter acre plot and John pushed aside an apology for a garden gate, which was a few branches tied with twine.

In front of the hut was a garden where vegetables grew, though many had already been harvested and others, such as rows of beans, had died back at the end of the season. He could hear the bellow of a cow and the grunting of pigs behind the house and as he walked to the door he saw a female goat tied to a stake on a patch of coarse grass.

The building was of the usual cob under a tattered thatch, once whitewashed with lime, but patches of the surface plastering had fallen away to reveal the straw and clay underneath. The door was a sheet of thick boiled leather hanging from the lintel, and the bailiff pushed this aside and stuck his head in to shout.

'Aelfric! Gunna! Are you there? The coroner wants to talk to Agnes.'

A small lad, little more than a toddler, shot out of the doorway, pursued by a barking mongrel, and vanished around the side of the house. Then a large woman of Saxon blood appeared, probably not more than thirty years old, her face lined and worn with toil.

She had a small baby in her arms and her soiled and patched dress was pulled aside to allow it to feed from her breast.

She looked with lacklustre eyes at the bailiff, then at John and the two men standing behind him.

'My man is working, but Agnes is here. Two neighbours brought her home.' Her voice was flat and apathetic. 'You'd best come in if you want to talk to her. God knows how we'll manage if she loses her work at the wash house.'

Walter Hog held the door-flap aside and de Wolfe went in, Gwyn and Thomas standing at the threshold where they could hear what was being said. John found himself in a long room that smelt strongly of cow manure as at one end a wattle screen penned in two brown calves and a stinking billy-goat. At the other was a heap of dried ferns on a wooden shelf that served as the matrimonial bed, under which was more bracken to soften the sleeping place of three children.

A fire-pit in the centre was only smouldering at present, so there was little smoke to choke the atmosphere. Along the back wall was another wide wooden shelf with pots and dishes which appeared to be mainly used for skimming milk and brewing ale. Around the fire-pit, over which was an iron trivet from which hung a small cauldron, a few more pots and dishes indicated the cooking facilities. A couple of milking stools were the only other furniture, but the object of his visit was sitting on the floor with her back to the wall. Agnes had a sullen, defiant look on her round face, but this cleared somewhat when she saw who the visitor was.

'Thank you for delivering me from those men, sir,' she said, in an unexpected bout of gratitude. 'I have done nothing wrong, I swear it.'

'You went with that… that man again,' snapped her mother. 'Is that not wrong?'

Agnes jumped to her feet, her face flushed with anger. 'What choice did I have? He was our lord and master — and you were glad enough of the two pennies I brought home.'

The woman shrugged and pulled the baby from her breast and laid it on a grubby cloth spread on the bed.

Agnes went to the infant and sat alongside it, gently stroking its sparse fair hair to soothe it to sleep, while her mother unselfconsciously rearranged her dress and tucked the ends of her head-cloth into her neckline. 'You answer this lord truthfully, girl,' she said sternly.

John thought it time to interrupt this domestic tableau. 'I'm no lord, woman, but an officer of the King determined to see justice done.' He turned to the girl, who looked up at him with suspicious eyes.

'Agnes, if as you claim you have done no evil, you have nothing to fear. I will not allow the new lord of this manor, whoever he might turn out to be, to blame you unjustly. Do you understand?'

She looked at her mother, then back at the coroner and finally nodded.

'Were you in that ox byre last night?'

'Yes, that's where he took me the time before; It's always empty this time of year, the beasts are kept on the waste.'

'When did you go there?'

'I left the wash house after they brought the cloths from the hall. Every night, we have to wash the table linen that they use for supper. Lady Avelina won't eat from bare boards, so they say.'

This was about as accurate an indicator of the time as anyone in a village would be able to offer, with not yet a single clock in the isles of Britain. Dusk and dawn were the only sure markers, unless one stood within sound of the bells of a cathedral or abbey, whose sand glasses and graduated candles indicated the times for the daily services.

'Was it dark, then?'

'Getting dusk, sir. Near enough dark by the time he had finished with me.'

John had no interest in hearing the details. 'Had Sir Hugo been drinking, Agnes?'

She grimaced. 'All men are drunk at night, sir. I could smell wine, not ale, but he could walk well enough — and do me until I ached.'

Her mother tutted under her breath, but John felt that she was not particularly distressed about her daughter's activities.

'Did he take you by force, girl — or did you go willingly?'

Again the plump-faced girl looked covertly at her mother. 'I had little choice, sir. In turn, he has been through most of the girls in the laundry and the kitchen. One who refused got a thrashing from him and was turned out of her job — so her father thrashed her again for being a heavier burden on the family. Sir Hugo always gave us a penny or two afterwards, so we didn't mind all that much.'

She sniffed and wiped her running nose. 'After tournaments was the best. If he won, he was in a right good humour when he came home. He once gave a maid in the kitchen four whole pence on one of those nights!' she said with wistful wonderment.

De Wolfe felt that they were wandering from the point.

'Now, when he had finished with you, what happened? Was he quite well when you left him?'

According to Agnes, after he had had his way with her in the hay, Hugo had produced two pennies from his scrip and told her to go home.

'So you left him in the byre alone?'

'He was still lying in the hay, sir. He sounded sleepy.

I remember he yawned as I took the money. It was almost dark in there, but I could hear him yawn.'

'When you left, did you see anyone about the place?'

'Not a soul. I came straight home, up the road past the manor gate, where there were people talking in the bailey. But it was almost night, so I couldn't see very well.'

'She did come in then, sir,' cut in the mother. 'I was at the gate talking to my neighbour when she came. There was just a streak of light left in the western sky.'

John scratched his bristly face as he considered the sparse information. It had the ring of truth about it and, apart from anything else, he failed to see why Agnes should have murdered someone who occasionally gave her twopence.

'Do you own a knife, girl?' he asked.

She shook her head, almost grinning at the daft question. 'I've got a wooden spoon my father carved for me. I do my eating with that.'

'Broth and pottage is about all we have — there's little need for knives for the kind of food we have,' said the mother bitterly.

De Wolfe was running out of ideas now, but looked at the clothes that Agnes was wearing — a shapeless kirtle of brown wool, darned and ragged at the hem, with a soiled linen apron over the front. Her hair was plaited into a pigtail down her back and she wore no head-rail. The apron appeared free of anything that could be bloodstains.

'Have you changed your clothing since last night? he asked.

The girl gave a hollow laugh. 'Changed! What into, sir? This is all I have — and this was my sister's before she died of the yellow ague.'

As she sat stroking the head of her infant brother, John saw a tear glisten in her eye, but whether it was for her dead sister or her own miserable lot, he could not decide. With some throat-clearing noises to cover his feelings, he prepared to leave, but as he moved towards the door he fumbled in his belt-pouch and produced two pennies.

Giving them to the sad-featured woman, he mumbled at her as he passed.

'She doesn't need to earn this in the same way. Get her something better to wear.'

'Sir Richard has returned to his own manor, Crowner.

We cannot presume too much upon his kindness, he has his own affairs to attend to.'

Something in Odo's voice caused a worm of unease to wriggle in John's mind, though he could not quite say why. He had been brought back to the manor house from Agnes's hovel by the bailiff and was now sitting at a table in the hall. He had a jug of ale and a platter of cold meats, cheese and bread before him. He would have to stay the night, as it was now too late for him get back to Exeter, and in spite of the obvious reluctance the Peverel family showed to his continued presence, the rigid rules of hospitality overrode any overt antagonism, though Ralph's attitude came perilously close. Gwyn and Thomas had been taken off to the kitchens behind the house to be fed, and John had been offered a mattress next to the hearth for the night.

'We regret we have no vacant chamber, Crowner,' continued Odo. 'But the ladies occupy one each upstairs, as I do, being unmarried. Ralph and his family have a separate dwelling at the back of the compound, which Joel also shares.'

John was indifferent to his own comfort, having spent half the nights of his adult life wrapped in his cloak in barns, hedges, forests or deserts across the known world. 'I need to speak to you all before I leave in the morning,' he said. 'May we begin now, and perhaps later you will see if the ladies will be so kind as to present themselves?'

Ralph scowled at him from the other side of the trestle, where the brothers and their steward were lined up. 'And are you intending to question each and every one of the villagers? There are well over a hundred serfs and freemen in Sampford, including the women.'

'They will be assembled at my inquest on Wednesday and can be questioned then,' replied de Wolfe patiently. 'Unless you consider that any particular person has knowledge that I should probe before I leave?'

There was silence at this and no suggestions were offered, so the coroner began questioning each of them in turn. For all the use it turned out to be, he might as well have saved his breath. Odo was courteous enough, but volunteered nothing, answering only direct questions.

'When did I last see Hugo? It was after our supper last night. Unlike many households, we take a substantial meal in the evening, rather than confine our main meal to the middle of the day. Afterwards, we went our various ways, I to my bed quite early. As I went, I saw Hugo leave the hall and that's the last I saw of him — alive.'

'Had he been drinking heavily?'

Odo smiled wryly. 'What is heavily, Crowner? Hugo was fond of ale, cider and wine, as most of us are. But he had no greater capacity than most men. Last night, he took no more, no less than usual.'

John could prise nothing more useful from the eldest brother and turned to Joel, thinking to leave the more recalcitrant Ralph until last. The younger man seemed to treat the serious matter of a murder investigation as a joke and grinned and rolled his eyes as he lolled on his bench while the coroner asked his questions.

'Have you anything to add to your brother's recollections?' he said sternly, privately wishing to give the jackanapes a clout around the ear to wipe the insolence from his face.

'Not a word, Crowner! Hugo was not one to be questioned about his private activities. As the youngest, I have suffered from his short temper since childhood. He allowed no liberties to be taken and many is the time that he gave me a buffet that knocked me on my arse!'

'That doesn't answer my question to you about last night,' snapped de Wolfe. 'What happened?'

Quite unperturbed by the rebuff, Joel replied that after the meal had been cleared away he had had several games of draughts with his sister-in-law Beatrice, then, as it grew dark, he went to his bed in the house at the back of the bailey. He saw Hugo leave the hall while he was playing, and that was the extent of his knowledge about the matter. He related all this with an airy nonchalance that made John want to shake him, but there was nothing of any use in his story.

When he turned to the remaining brother, sitting at the end of the table, he was met with stony hostility.

'Have you reconsidered your quite unreasonable decision to force us to wait two days before we can decently bury our poor brother?' barked Ralph. 'I consider it an insult to the memory of a fellow-knight and manor-lord and I will be reporting your malfeasance to the bishop!'

De Wolfe glared at him. 'The bishop? What in hell has the bishop to do with anything?' he snarled. 'Report what you like, sir, but at least do it to the correct authority. The proper quarter is the Chief Justiciar or the King's justices when they next come to Devon. All you'll get is confirmation of the legal procedure, but you are very welcome to present your complaint!' He thumped his fist on the table in annoyance. 'Now, sir, answer my questions. Is your recollection of the events of last evening similar to that of your kinsmen here?'

Grudgingly, Ralph agreed that Hugo had left the room soon after the meal, at which, as usual, he had drunk liberally. He had not been seen again that night and in the morning a search was mounted for him when his wife reported that he had not returned to their chamber all night. John pondered for a moment.

'Before the ladies are called, I will dispose of a more delicate matter. I assume from what I have been told by others that it was not unusual for him to take a wench somewhere for his pleasure?'

Joel grinned. 'Don't we all do the same at some time, Crowner? I have heard that you yourself are not above slaking your natural desires occasionally!'

'Mind your tongue, young man,' snapped de Wolfe. 'I am only concerned with Hugo Peverel's activities.'

Odo broke in with a rather weary voice. 'Whatever the rest of us do — and I am not a married man — Hugo had a strong appetite for life, be it food, drink, tourneying or women! Yes, he often took one of the servant girls for his satisfaction. They were not forced into it, but were often eager for both the experience and for the silver pennies.'

'My brother was no rapist, if that is what you're insinuating,' sneered Ralph. 'Yet this wash-house slut must surely have killed him! Perhaps she robbed him for the extra coins she saw in his purse.'

John, exasperated by the endless obduracy of the man, shook his dark head emphatically. 'There were still coins in his scrip — and the girl possessed no knife at all. Furthermore, her only raiment was free from even a single spot of blood.'

'None of those proclaim her innocent, Crowner. Who knows how many pennies were in his purse before she pillaged it?'

John sighed — nothing he could say would shift this man's stubborn notions, some of which he suspected had been planted by Richard de Revelle.

'Very well, then tell me if there is anyone in the manor — or without it — who had such a grudge against Hugo that they might have wished him dead.' Again there was silence, though each brother cast a somewhat furtive glance at the others. Finally Odo answered.

'Not in the manor, of course not! Hugo was the lord, everyone depended upon him for their very life. The dwelling over their head, the food they ate, their daily employment — all were at his behest. Why should anyone hate him?'

De Wolfe saw little logic in this reply, as the maxim 'The king is dead, long live the king' applied as much to manors as kingdoms. But he seized on one phrase.

'You said no one in the manor, Sir Odo. Does that imply that he may have had enemies outwith the village?'

Ralph broke in, jealous that his brother was hogging the discussion.

'Unlike me, Odo knows little of the tournament scene. Like our father before us, Hugo and I were devoted to that noble sport, where passions often run high. Competition and rivalry are rife, sometimes to the point of personal enmity.'

'We saw good evidence of that in Exeter last week,' drawled Joel mischievously. 'If that Frenchman de Charterai had been in this vicinity last night, I would withdraw my accusations against this slut Agnes.' John noticed that, although the Peverel family had been in England for well over a century, they still considered themselves to be Norman enough for a Frenchman to be a foreigner.

'There are a number of knights who have lost heavily to Hugo on the tourney field,' said Ralph. 'Some have lost sufficiently, both in pride and fortune, to wish him evil. But. I doubt they would come creeping into Sampford at night to stab him in the back!' There was nothing more to be learned from these autocratic brothers — John found that extracting information from them was like pulling teeth. Grudgingly, Odo agreed to have the ladies called down and a few moments later Avelina and Beatrice appeared, chaperoned by their shadowy tire-women. Of Ralph's wife there had been no sign, but the bailiff had told John earlier that she had been delivered of her third child only two weeks before and remained feverish and weak in the house behind the manor. The men rose and waited until the two ladies had been settled in their chairs, then took their places on the stools on either side, the brothers' body language displaying an aggressively protective attitude.

'Keep this short, Crowner,' growled Ralph, his handsome face set in a stony glare. 'Our ladies are distressed and fatigued by these unhappy events.'

In fact, they looked anything but distressed. Avelina sat upright, alert and almost combative, while the newly widowed Beatrice had donned her best blue silken kirtle and snowy wimple. She looked radiant as she glanced covertly at Joel, who was clearly entranced by her interest in him. John wondered how they had comported themselves when Hugo was alive, as surely this amorous relationship could not have blossomed in the last day. With an effort, he brought his mind back to the present.

'Mesdames, I will not detain you for long,' he said politely. Their full attention swung to him and both women felt a tug of interest as they surveyed this tall, muscular man with the face of a black hawk.

They knew of his reputation as a Crusader, an adventurer and a ladies' man. Awareness of his relationship with the Welsh tavern-keeper was not confined to Exeter, and with women's expert eyes they saw that his otherwise saturnine features were relieved by a pair of lips that betrayed his potentially passionate nature. Though Beatrice was too enamoured of Joel, Avelina was almost the same age as the coroner and could not resist a moment of imagination centred on the possibility of an affair with this man she had heard referred to as Black John.

She pulled herself together as she heard those same lips addressing her.

'Lady Avelina, can I trouble you to tell me anything you know of the sad demise of your stepson?' Her story was in essence the same as the others' and equally unhelpful. Hugo had still been in the hall when she retired to the solar upstairs.

'Father Patrick accompanied me as usual, to say with me my evening prayers for the soul of my late husband, taken from me so cruelly earlier this year,' she said.

'Then I went to my chamber where Florence prepared me for bed.'

She tipped her head towards the tall, silent girl who stood beside her chair.

'And you know of no one who might have hated Hugo sufficiently to want him dead?'

A flush rose slowly in her elegant cheeks. 'I will make no bones about it, Coroner. He was not a popular man. His villagers were afraid of his intemperate nature and his lusting after their younger womenfolk was deeply resented.'

There was a shuffling of feet among the brothers and Ralph opened his mouth to protest, then it snapped shut as he thought better of it. Considering this a good opportunity to try to prise more from this fractious family, John said, 'It has been suggested that Hugo may have made enemies among the tourneying fraternity persons such as Reginald de Charterai were mentioned.' At this, Avelina was transformed in an instant. From being a calm regal figure, she suddenly blazed into a furious temper. Her eyes widened and her face flushed as she half rose from her seat and slapped her hand imperiously on the edge of the table.

'Who dared make such a suggestion?' she demanded hotly. 'Sir Reginald is a man of honour and integrity. I was ashamed to hear of the way that Hugo insulted him in Exeter!'

John raised his hand placatingly as the Peverels scowled at their stepmother and muttered under their breath.

'I merely gave that as an example, madam. I apologise if it gave offence.'

The handsome dowager glared at him, her transient interest in him vanishing like frost in the sun. 'I am well acquainted with Reginald de Charterai and know him for a man of impeccable character.' She swept her gaze around her stepsons and decided to shock them with some news. 'In fact, some time ago I invited him to visit this manor so that we might renew that acquaintance. He should arrive tomorrow, as he is lodging in Tiverton.'

The object of the meeting was forgotten as the three brothers jumped to their feet in angry consternation, all vying with each other to speak the loudest.

'For the sake of Christ, Avelina, what were you thinking of?' yelled Odo, his usual restraint thrown to the winds. 'Hugo's body is barely cold and you're inviting his worst enemy to his home!'

'He is coming to pay attendance on me, not Hugo,' she said icily. 'My invitation to him was sent long before that distasteful episode in Exeter — and even longer before his death.'

'Then thank God he is dead, though I be cursed for saying it!' bellowed Ralph. 'For if he had been alive, he would have beaten your new paramour to within an inch of his life!'

Now flushed with anger, Avelina pointed a quivering finger at the speaker.

'How dare you insult me so, damn you! To call him my paramour! Had I my husband still, he would have thrashed you for your impertinence, though you were his son!'

Joel, usually whimsical in his sneering, was moved to be deadly serious for once. 'Lady, you must be out of your mind! To associate with a man who was Hugo's sworn adversary is bad enough — but to actually invite him here is folly beyond my understanding.'

The older woman remained quite unbowed under the unanimous condemnation and John, an admirer of mature womanhood, was greatly impressed by her imperious disdain of this masculine disapproval.

'Until my husband died — or was killed,' she continued with a hint of ambiguity that was not lost on John, 'this was my home, and I still consider it to be such. I am quite entitled to invite here whom I please. I am a widow and there can be no impropriety in my choice of a friend, be it male or female!'

'I am the lord now, madam,' hissed Ralph. 'As such, I choose who comes here and who does not! This de Charterai is persona non grata in Sampford Peverel after the emnity between him and my brother.'

The formidable Avelina, now in a towering rage, began to vigorously contradict Ralph, but was drowned out by the booming voice of Odo, who directed his venom at Ralph, rather than his stepmother.

'Brother, you forget yourself! You have no right to take upon yourself the mantle of manor-lord. I am your senior now by two removes, Hugo having been your elder brother, yet still ranking below me.'

'You lost the inheritance by the ruling of the law, Odo!' shrieked Ralph. 'You cannot hope to retrieve it now. '

'Why not? The court found for Hugo against me, unjust though that decision was. They did not rule me out against a mere youth like you, so do not assume airs and graces that do not exist, either in equity or law!'

De Wolfe, though beginning to despair of getting any sense out of this discordant family, nevertheless allowed the dispute to flourish, as he felt that anger might lead to some incautious admissions. They were all shouting and declaiming in such confusion, however, that little sense could be made of anything.

The steward stood at one end of the table, his mouth drooping in astonishment, and the lesser servants in the background were enjoying the sight of the family in such undignified disarray. It would give them ample fuel for gossip in the kitchens for weeks to come.

When it became apparent to de Wolfe that he was going to gain nothing useful from this spiteful cacophony, he beat his fists upon the table and yelled at the top of his voice.

'God's guts, will you all be silent! Ladies, I apologise for my necessary intrusion upon your domestic disputes, but I have to attend to the King's business.' There was an immediate lull in the arguing, more from surprise at a stranger shouting at them in their own hall than from any desire to obey him.

'Lady Beatrice, let me ask you what I need, then I'll leave you all to your personal affairs,' de Wolfe continued.

The younger woman was the only one who had not joined in the general hubbub, sitting placidly through it all. John suspected that her virtues lay in her undoubted beauty rather than her brains or depth of character.

'I regret having to pester you in your bereavement, but is your recollection of last evening similar to the other sparse testimony that I have heard?' Beatrice raised her long-lashed eyes to meet his, and in spite of the circumstances he felt a frisson of desire as she smiled at him.

'You are most genteel, Sir John, but there is nothing I can add. I played draughts with Joel after the meal ended, then I went to my chamber, where my maid prepared me for bed. My husband did not return before I went to sleep — but that was not unusual,' she added rather petulantly.

'And as far as you recall, he did not return at any time during the night?'

She shook her head, a wisp of golden hair appearing from under her silken cover-chief. 'He was not there after I awoke some time after dawn. And my maid, who sleeps on a pallet outside my door, said that he had not returned at any time.'

The dark-haired girl, who stood behind her Chair, nodded but said nothing. All their stories were so similar that John suspected that they had agreed on them beforehand, but he philosophically accepted that this may have been because they were true.

'And being in the closest confidence of all, Hugo being your husband, have you any reason to suspect any person who might wish him evil?'

Beatrice glanced quickly around her brothers-in-law, then lowered her eyes.

'None at all, sir,' she replied in little more than a whisper.

'A complete waste of bloody time!' grumbled de Wolfe.

'The whole lot of them clammed up like limpets at low tide.'

It was late that night and the coroner was sitting with Gwyn and Thomas in the village alehouse near the green, only a stone's throw from the byre where Hugo had been found. Though the tavern was a miserable place, John found it preferable to the hostile atmosphere of the manor house.

When he had abandoned his attempt to squeeze more information from the Peverel family, he had sought out his assistants in the kitchens and walked them in the dusk around the village, to get a feel for the geography of the place. Then he had brought them to the hovel with the bare bush hanging from a bracket outside the door, and they stood in the only room, drinking an indifferent ale, which from the expression on their clerk's face was only slightly preferable to hemlock.

The taproom was but a shadow of the superior accommodation at the Bush at Exeter. A low room with crumbling cob walls between worm-eaten frames, it had damp, dirty rushes on the floor, which rustled ominously as various rodents burrowed through it for scraps of fallen food. Inside the once whitewashed stones that ringed the fire-pit in the centre, some logs smouldered on the ashes. There were a few three-legged stools scattered about but no tables, and the coroner's trio stood together by the only window-opening, where they used the rough sill to support their misshapen pottery mugs. Against the far wall, a slatternly ale-wife ladled her thin brew into the mugs from several tengallon crocks standing on the floor. A dozen men stood about drinking, ignoring the stools and staring suspiciously at the three strangers near the window.

'Did you learn anything from the kitchen maids?' John asked Gwyn, knowing of his roguish ways with servant girls.

His officer finished filtering ale through his luxuriant moustache before replying. 'It's an unhappy manor, that's for sure, but I heard nothing much of use. A little more digging will probably turn up more scandal, though whether it would have any bearing on this slaying is doubtful.'

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 'That Hugo was unpopular with everyone, that's for sure, but they wouldn't tell me why.'

John took another mouthful of ale and winced at the taste, comparing it unfavourably with the fruits of Nesta's expertise. 'When I've finished this horse-piss, I'll find a pallet in a corner of the hall, as long as those damned brothers have cleared off. But I want you to stay here for a while, Gwyn. See what you can wheedle out of these villagers. Here's twopence to ply them with ale.'

As he fumbled in his scrip for some coins, he spoke to his clerk.

'And you, Thomas, you can do what you have done to good account several times before. Seek out that fat Irish priest and play your cleric's game with him. It will be more honest now that you must surely soon be on your way to reinstatement.'

Thomas de Peyne felt a glow of pleasure, both at the trust his master placed in him and the reminder that his time as an outcast from his beloved Church was coming to an end. The little clerk had a gift for wheedling information from parish priests, who usually accepted him as one of their own with his threadbare cassock, shaven head and wide command of Latin. They were more free with their confidences, especially when their tongues were loosened by drink, which was a common failing among those disillusioned priests dumped in some obscure parish with no hope of advancement.

As the coroner and Thomas prepared to leave the dismal inn, Gwyn gave a valedictory piece of news.

'There's something going on between Richard de Revelle and the Peverels. I saw them with their heads together as he was leaving and I'll wager they were plotting some mischief- though God knows what!'