King Arthur's Bones

ACT THREE

Thursday before the Feast of St Martin in Winter, Fifteenth Year of the Reign of King Edward II, [2] Abbey Dore, Herefordshire

Iestyn had learned his job well. No brother knew the tasks so well as he. He had made certain of it.

He still felt that slight crawling of the flesh on his head as he passed by the little mounds in the lay brothers’ cemetery. Now, in the middle watches of the night, the ancient superstitions were hard to discard. When a man had grown here in the wild country, he may understand that the wisps of paleness were the normal mists, he may even know that the screeching from the tree at the farm over the wall was an owl, but that seemed to have little effect here, in the lee of the wall of the graveyard. Here all he could think of were the stories of ghouls and ghosts.

Soon he was at the projection in the wall. Here his grandfather had set the stone, carefully tamping it into place, so that the precious box could be found. Back then he had thought his only task would be to pass on the location to someone else. Now Iestyn realized that it could not remain. It must be saved.

It was the rocks that made movement essential.

The abbey had taken delivery of a pile of rocks to build a suitable altar for the pilgrims who were certain to arrive to view the piece of the Holy Cross which had been given to the abbey by Sir William de Grandisson. The masons were swarming all over this area by day, and one had already found the little hole in the ground. A pile of rubble lay all over here, from the present reworkings, and one large rock had fallen on top of the relics in their box – Iestyn only prayed that the bones themselves weren’t damaged.

He must shift some of the smaller rocks that still lay about before he could get to it. An inquisitive man might see the box otherwise – masons weren’t above digging where an interesting hole materialized, and most knew that old bones could easily be taken and sold. There were strange fools who would always want to buy such things. Necromancers, alchemists and even simple pardoners were keen to get their hands on bones.

Scraping the soil away, he soon found the corner of the box, and he knelt, staring at it for a long moment before clearing the rest of the dirt about it and bringing it up into the dim light. He could feel a tingle running through his hands, up his wrists, along his arms, down his back, as he clasped it to his chest.

Huw ap Madoc stood waiting in the shadow of the gateway.

‘Here, take it, friend, and protect it and the contents with your life,’ a voice hissed, and Huw found himself holding the final remains of the king.

‘I will protect you,’ he said, and felt a mixture of foolishness and pride. Foolishness for talking to a box of bones, pride for knowing that he held here in his arms the future hopes of his nation.

When he was younger, he had sneered at the thought of the Guardians. The idea that he should be the last in the line of men who sought to protect the bones was laughable. Long dead now, his father: a good man, if somewhat fixated on the relics. He could still remember the way in which his father had drummed into him the story of their ancestors, the vital role they must play in the defence of their homeland. Old Madoc had been consumed by the thought of Arthur returning to their land, bringing fire and sword to evict the invaders. It was a delicious idea to Madoc. At the time it had seemed daft to Huw.

Not now. Now that the land of his fathers had been so devastated by the English, it was much more attractive.

‘I won’t let you be harmed,’ he said.

And for three years and one half, he was right.

Wednesday before the Feast of St John the Baptist, [3] Crediton, Devon

On the day that Sir Baldwin de Furnshill first met the pair of them, he had already been involved in one altercation, and the sight of the pardoner and his friend was enough to make him want to turn about and hurry in the opposite direction.

Earlier it had been a simple dispute about money due. The Church of the Holy Cross and the Mother of Him Who Died Thereon was a vital part of the town of Crediton, and the twelve canons were known to all the townspeople. But every so often there were little flares of resentment. Such as today.

Such a small matter, but one that could have so easily come to blows. A canon riding along the street with his little cavalcade of servants managed to splash the green skirts and red cloak of a townswoman with muddy water. Yes, it was a small matter, and she would have been happy enough, probably, with a simple apology from any other man: any woman would have been. Except she was Agatha, the wife of Henry of Copplestone, and he already had a claim in the court against the dean of the church for damages. A small flock of the dean’s sheep had been left to roam by a lazy church shepherd, and they had consumed the better part of Henry’s pea crop. Which was why she shrieked at the canon like one demented.

It was also why Canon Arthur wouldn’t apologize, and when Agatha’s servant began to berate the man, his ecclesiastical servants came to hold him back and ended up knocking him to the ground. Which was why some townspeople, who naturally supported their neighbour against Church arrogance, surged forward to protect him.

When Baldwin arrived, the shouting had already become incoherent. As always, each resorted to his own tongue, and now Canon Arthur was sneering in Latin, while Agatha and her friends replied in more earthy Saxon. The guards with Baldwin were demanding silence in Norman French, while the servant and his friends were cursing and swearing in fluent Celtic that reminded Baldwin of the Welsh foot soldiers he had met on his travels. It took all his powers of diplomacy to calm the affair, to force the canon to apologize gruffly, against the promise that Baldwin would tell the canon’s dean if he did not submit, and then threatened the gathering with a day in the stocks if they didn’t disperse and leave the clerical group to continue on their way.

Eventually common sense had prevailed. The cold, aloof canon had doffed his hat to Baldwin, while the wife of Henry of Copplestone had sniffily turned her back on the crowds about. Not without attracting some admiring glances, though, because she was a lovely woman. High cheekbones, slightly slanted eyes, full lips, all added to an allure that was uncommon in Crediton generally.

Yes, he had had enough of soothing troublesome citizens, and the sight of two men, who were to his mind little better than felons, was enough to make him want to fly up the road to the stable where his horse waited, leap on it and ride home at speed. But he was Keeper of the King’s Peace, and his sense of duty wouldn’t allow him – even though, as he strode forward, he was sure that he saw others bolting at the sight of the two walking towards him. One couple looked shifty and guilty, he thought, as though they themselves were running from the law, they fled off so swiftly, bolting up an alleyway. But no, he recognized the glimpse of a green skirt and a long scarlet cloak and took a quick breath of relief – it was Agatha again, he realized, and then he realized that the man with her was a churchman – he had the robes of a canon – but with that thought his own options for flight were gone. The two were upon him.

‘Godspeed,’ he said, baring his teeth in almost a smile.

‘Good Sir Knight.’ The first man hailed him with a bow and made a swift movement of his hand, roughly sketching a cross over his breast, although to Baldwin in his present sour mood it appeared to outline the Arabic numeral that denoted eight, a series of swoops that ended at his right shoulder. ‘I hope I see you well?’

His slapdash gesture was irritating, almost an insult to God, Baldwin felt. Not that his ability to make the sign more effectively would have endeared him to Baldwin – nor helped Baldwin to trust him. ‘You have the permission of the bishop to sell your wares?’ he asked sharply.

‘I have the permission of the Pope himself,’ the fellow replied and bowed again.

‘The bishop takes a dim view of men like you,’ Baldwin said.

‘A humble pardoner? But all I do is ease the souls of those who need my aid.’

‘And by what right do you judge the extent of a man’s sin? Are you trained as a cleric?’

‘I am licensed, Sir Knight. The Pope has given me the power to offer remission of sins. Perhaps you would appreciate a little something? Remission of sins for thirty days after payment is not to be sniffed at. So long as you are truly penitent, of course. And I can give you a discount for…’

‘Yes, you would take my money. I know you and your sort, man. I will have nothing to do with you. Take your papers and find someone who’s more likely to be taken in. I am not.’

‘Oh.’ The man looked mournful for a moment, looking Baldwin up and down with the gaze of a man contemplating a poor victim of fate, a man whose soul must inevitably be damned.

It was not the sort of expression that suited him. The pardoner was a stolidly built man, with more about his belly than a humble ecclesiastic should carry. Maybe of Baldwin’s height, he had a ruddy complexion, which Baldwin felt owed more to the amount of ale he consumed daily than to exposure to the elements, with a round face and heavy jowls. His hands were moderately clean, with long nails to show he had never been forced to work over-hard, no matter that he wore a threadbare old habit as though he was some kind of poverty-stricken cleric. At his side was a leather purse that had a long strap over his shoulder, and which appeared to weigh no small amount. His feet were booted with good red cordovan leather – better, Baldwin guessed, than his own.

‘Are you selling this rubbish too?’ Baldwin demanded of the second man.

This second man did not appear so fat. His own business was less profitable, no doubt. He was thinner, with a face that was lined and marked with the weather of several winters. It was the temper of the man, though, which had scored his features. There were lines at the side of his mouth and deep wrinkles in his brow, which came from an ill nature, if Baldwin were to guess. He had seen many men like this in his time. The man was one who wore his suspicion of the world on his face. There was no mask of deceit there. It made Baldwin wonder how the man could make a living, with so grim an appearance.

‘You think I sell promises of eternal life? Nay, lord, I am a triacleur, a mere humble trader in potions for the ill and needy.’

Baldwin looked him up and down. A Welshman, then, from his accent. One of those who was so effective in the king’s armies, with their long knives and bloodthirsty determination to be first at the rape and pillage, he thought. Except this one was different. A triacleur, he was one of those itinerant wanderers who sold treacle or some similar ineffective medicine to the gullible. At least they didn’t make promises about protecting a man’s soul. Giving sweet-flavoured draughts to those who sought comfort from their ailments was almost a kindly act, in his opinion.

‘Well, if I find either of you near my estates or villeins, I’ll have you flogged out of the vill,’ he grunted. ‘Be off with you!’

‘Hardly the welcome we hoped for, eh, Huw?’ the pardoner said.

‘It is common enough that great men will look askance at us, John,’ the triacleur said.

‘Well and good. I have enough to deal with without two such as you,’ Baldwin said, and stood aside, watching the two amble on towards the main street.

He was glad to be rid of them. All he hoped now was that he may not see them again. Sadly, he felt sure his hopes would be dashed, but he had no idea how soon that would be.

Further up the lanes, Agatha clutched Arthur’s hand and stared back down towards the town’s high street. ‘Do you think he saw us?’

Canon Arthur looked down at her. Her eyes were glittering with anxiety and dread, her breast rising and falling deliciously. ‘No, Mistress. I am sure our secret’s safe.’

Thursday before the Feast of St John the Baptist, [4] Sandford

John the Pardoner sat back against the wall in the little alehouse and rubbed his back contentedly against the stone and cob. It had started disastrously, but ended not a bad day, all in all. At least his purse was full.

He wished he’d not had the row with Huw. Huw had remained in Crediton to sell what he could in the way of potions to a credulous audience, and John had left him there. They had not parted happily.

It was a foolish altercation, but no less poisonous for that. Huw had been asking a little too much about things. He should have known that a man’s sources were sacrosanct. Otherwise they weren’t uniquely his own any more. Why on earth he should wish to know so much about where the bones had come from, John had no idea. They were just old bones, in God’s name. It left John wondering whether Huw was himself thinking about moving into the pardoning business.

Ach! In his heart John had hoped Huw would have followed on after him, hopefully meeting him again at Sandford, but Huw hadn’t turned up. John would have to get used to walking about the country on his own in future. Well, he’d done it often enough before. Huw had suggested that they stay together because two men on the road were safer than one alone, but down here in the wild country west of Exeter, it was Huw who would be most in danger. At least the folk here were John’s countrymen, even if they did sound a little outlandish to his ear. It was a pity, though. Huw had been a good travelling companion.

John had had a good afternoon. The parish priest, an older man with grey hair fringing his tonsure, had appeared to be glad to meet him when he had arrived at the tiny little hamlet of Sandford. He had known he was on to a good thing long before he met Father William, though, as soon as he saw the great church up ahead of him on the rise. A church like that was a guarantee of cash in a pardoner’s pocket.

It was a good day for a walk. Made a nice change after some of the weather he’d endured in his time. Sweet Jesu, the march from Wales had been God-cursed. Lousy weather, rain in his face the whole way, his hat, the one he’d bought in Chartres, blowing away and snagging in a tree near a cliff so precipitous he’d not dared attempt a rescue, because all the while he was overwhelmed by the fear that his pursuers might catch him. That was petrifying.

But they hadn’t. He had survived again, and reached this delightful little vill with the red-sandstone church. Such a prosperous-looking church it was, too. The sort of place where a man might find people in abundance with money to throw about.

And from his reception, clearly there were more than the average number of sinners there.

He had taken his position with some care, standing before the alehouse with his cross, once he had spoken to the priest. The man was utterly content to have him there, naturally. His eyes had lit up like candles when he heard the proposal. And from that moment, John knew his fortune was made, even if the priest wouldn’t let him preach from his own pulpit. The bishop was not eager to have pardoners make use of his churches, but this was only a chapel of ease. This was a fine distinction, John knew, but any distinction was better than none.

Leaving the chapel, he saw an urchin standing with some friends. He was a scruffy, grubby little boy with the face of a demon and the manners of a stoat, but at the sight of a clipped penny the brat took John’s drum and began to beat a steady rhythm, following John down the little hill to his post outside the alehouse. Soon he had a small audience with him, and John could begin his sermon.

He had soared to new heights. Usually the feeling of being a foreigner would make him anxious. So often the ignorant churls wouldn’t understand what he was talking about, even when he was being as slow as possible, trying to explain every point clearly and concisely. And the mere act of careful enunciation highlighted his sense of strangeness, his alienness compared with the folk here. It made him feel this was a dangerous part of the country.

Country folk were the hardest, of course. They tended to stand by, surly and grim-faced, while he spoke, mistrusting the sight and sound of a different accent. Ach! They’d distrust a man who came from a vill two miles away, most of them. Give him a good city crowd for preference. They would admire his rhetoric, laugh at his sallies, and some would even pay him extra if his delivery had been good enough.

It wasn’t generally true of bumpkins. Where a city dweller appreciated that he would sometimes be fleeced, but still enjoyed the spectacle, the countryman would jealously guard his purse. The idea uppermost in his mind was generally that he was being rooked, and no villein liked to feel himself to be a gull.

Not so here, though. The people appeared uniformly cheery. There was nothing thrown at him. The boys, and even some of the women, heckled him good-naturedly, while the men openly laughed at his more risqué jokes. It was reassuring. Such attitudes spoke of money. And only the comfortably off could afford to commit sins, in his opinion. He always preferred wealthier crowds. The poor were too desperate for their next meal to bother with pardons.

When he lifted the parchment, all laden down with seals from bishops, damn his soul if a maid at the front didn’t swoon! It was the most perfect day he’d known in a long while. It was all downhill from there.

First the more easily swayed came to the front, some with their money all ready, others with rings or other tokens, and he’d passed out the vellum with enthusiasm. Each promised a period of thirty days, remission of sins after payment. Soon he’d have to buy some more vellum, if things kept going like this.

The second group arrived when the first were flagging. He had seen it all too often. While the first enthusiastic crush pressed forward, others would curl their lips, roll their eyes and otherwise demonstrate their contempt for the poor hopeful fools who were so keen to throw their money at a stranger.

That was when he would bring out his pride and joy. While the women and children snatched at their vellum, he slowly reached into his purse while watching the doubters at the back, and then bring out the feather. ‘Behold this! Granted to me by the Bishop of Bath and Wells!’ he roared, holding it aloft. Bath and Wells was far enough away, he reckoned, for it to be safe to tell a fib about the bishop down here.

‘What of it? A goose feather!’

‘“What of it,” you say? You dare suggest that this marvellous white plume is that of a common goose? Nay, friend. This is a feather from the wings of the angel Gabriel himself! Aye, but if you doubt my words, like Thomas, then you may leave well alone. Stay there at the back where you are safe, and see what miracles you miss!’

‘Get on! It’s a quill from the goose you stole – the one you ate last night, from the look of your gut, Pardoner!’

But the comment was jocular, not sour, and the sight was enough to bring a few more forward. Only a few. Others still waited at the back, several of them eyeing him with some admiration, like men who listened to the patter of a street seller, enjoying the atmosphere created.

That was when he brought out the bones, one by one, and let all see them, holding them in his cupped hands. And when he announced that they were King Arthur’s, the crowds were hushed in awe.

For a moment anyway, John reminded himself, contentedly rattling the coins in his purse. In his experience the longer the silent hesitation, the more money he would garner later. There was plenty here, and soon he would have more. He was a very happy man that night.

Which was good, because it was his last.

Hob of Oxford pulled the apron from his belly as the last guests left his little tavern. It had been a good day, all in all, what with the pardoner appearing and drawing in all the folk from the vill. They’d listened, and once he’d talked them out of their money they’d all come into Hob’s house to spend some more.

There were no two ways about it. The pardoner had made him a goodly sum of money. And while the fellow had taken some of Hob’s own in exchange for the little strip of vellum, that was not expensive. Especially for the peace of mind it gave him. He needed it.

Closing the door, he shoved the wooden peg into the wood above the latch to lock it before clearing the last of the cups and jugs from the floor where they had been discarded. He banked up the fire, kicking the embers into a small pile, and sank his backside down to rest on a stool nearby. It had been a long day, and his legs were killing him. A jug of ale at his side, he sipped contentedly, yawning and scratching at his beard while he considered the work he must do in the morning.

He was wryly contemplating an early morning’s start when he heard the faint noise. It was a scritching, scratching noise, and seemed to come from behind him.

This was not a large tavern. Two rooms only sufficed for the vill’s needs, and while Hob had a bed up in the rafters here, over the fire where it was warm, the room at the back was where he occasionally allowed travellers to sleep. It was where the pardoner was resting. Surely it was only that fellow, he told himself. Probably striking a light with flint and tinder. Needed a light to find his way to the pot. Not surprising, the amount the man had put away. Not many could drink so much. Of course, Hob was to blame. He shouldn’t have offered all the ale the man could drink in exchange for his strip of vellum.

Grunting, he rose, emptied the last of his jug over the glowing coals and stepped away as the steam fumed. Only when he was sure the fire was dead did he begin to make his way to the ladder that gave access to his upper chamber.

But there was a curious odour in the air. A scent of burning that was odd. It was not natural. All about him was the fug of his damp hearth, but for some reason he could also smell fresh woodsmoke. It was an abnormal smell. Peculiar, odd, out of place. It was enough to make him pause at the bottom of his ladder, frowning and peering about him. And then he heard another noise, some sort of clattering or something.

He didn’t want to check. The man was just soused, that was all. He’d probably fallen over. But if he’d collapsed and puked, he might die. And he could have knocked over his pot of piss. The smell of that would reek in a day or so if he had. Ach! Better to see what the dull-witted prickle had done.

Taking a rushlight from its holder on the wall, he used it to light a candle. There was no need for silence, not if the sot was so mazed he had fallen over. Hob threw open the door, and it was only then, as the light from his candle illuminated the chamber, that he realized what had happened, and Hob began to scream even as he fled, running from the appalled horror in John’s dead eyes.

Friday before the Feast of St John the Baptist, [5] Crediton

Sir Baldwin was accustomed to being woken early.

In his youth he had joined the great Crusade which set off from England to aid the city of Acre in its hour of need. A massive army of Mamelukes had overrun the kingdom of Jerusalem and all the city states which bounded the sea, and now only Acre itself survived. But in a short time the city fell, and Baldwin was one of a tiny number of wounded men who were rescued by the Templars and brought back to health in their care. It left him with an abiding sense of commitment to the order, and he joined the knights as soon as he could to repay his debt.

Sleeping in the Temple had always been an austere experience, but sleeping here was if anything a little more… rugged, for want of a better word.

It was the spare bedchamber in his friend Dean Peter Clifford’s house in Crediton. Peter, a tall, stooped, white-haired cleric, was always pleased to provide hospitality for Baldwin when the Keeper had a need to stay in Crediton. And he was often about the town – occasionally in his capacity as Keeper, sometimes as a Justice of Gaol Delivery, occasionally for some social reason.

The banging on his door made him frown quickly though. This was not the patient, subtle knock of a servant seeking to gently arouse a sleeping guest. It was the panicked thudding of a servant who thought there was overriding need.

‘Sir Baldwin! There has been a murder. A dreadful murder!’

The canon hastened his way along the road from the church, his black robes flapping in the wind. It was cool this early in the morning, but the canon scarcely noticed, his cloak was drawn so tightly about him. In any case, when he saw his breath steaming on the morning air, it did not make him pause. A man in holy orders tended to see too much of stone slabs and tiles, usually in the middle watches of the night, and cool air held no fears for him.

He knew the way as well as he would if it were a part of the church’s lands. Up the high street, along the alleyway to the left, and then back on himself along the little track that led up the hill, before turning right again down the little lane. It ended in the large house.

It was a rough place, this. On the outskirts of the town itself, this area was the haunt of some of the poorest, and few would dare to approach without a group of men about them. Canon Arthur knew better than most how dangerous it truly was. He had been visiting this site for some months. Ever since his profitable little arrangement had begun.

The last time he had come he had felt sure that he had been followed. Afterwards the dean had grown frosty towards him, and he felt sure that his little secret was known – but there was no proof. He was sure of that.

He knocked on the door, glancing about him. Soon it opened, and he saw the narrow features of Edward of Newton, the servant of Henry of Copplestone.

It was all over in less time than a man would need to flay a rabbit. The canon hurried away from that evil place with his heart in his mouth, hoping against hope that no one saw him.

‘Well, Peter?’

The dean had been up for some while already, and he beckoned Baldwin into his little hall, asking, ‘Please, Baldwin, old friend, I am glad to see you well. You slept comfortably?’

‘Peter, there has been a crime, this lad tells me.’

Peter Clifford motioned to the boy to leave. ‘There has been a message to say that a man has been found dead in the Black Lamb at Sandford.’

‘Hob’s place? Who was it? A local?’

‘No, a foreigner, I heard. He was staying overnight with Hob, and someone killed him.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘Very well. I must go there, I suppose.’

Peter nodded and called to his servant to bring breakfast for them both. As Keeper of the King’s Peace, it was Baldwin’s duty to try to seek out felons. When a crime was committed, his writ commanded him to seek the man ‘from vill to vill, hundred to hundred, shire to shire’, with all the posse of the county. ‘You will eat first?’

‘I’d rather not fall from my saddle from hunger,’ Baldwin said, smiling.

‘I should warn you that the coroner has also been called.’

‘That is good.’

Peter lifted his eyebrows and gazed pensively at the jug as his bottler poured two mazers of wine. ‘Ah. Perhaps. It is Sir Richard de Welles.’

There were few names that would strike such a reaction in a man’s breast, Baldwin reflected later as he jogged along the muddy trail from the church, up the steep hill behind and down past the Creedy manor house to Sandford itself.

Sir Richard de Welles was one of those rare creatures, a king’s coroner who was uninterested in corruption. In the years since Baldwin had begun investigating felonies, he had known many of them, and most were little better than felons themselves: mendacious, devious and out to line their own purses. Men with honour and integrity were rare, but Sir Richard was one such. He didn’t reject corruption so much as live in a state of blindness to the possibility of it. So long as there was ale, wine and food, he was happy. But woe betide the man who did not see to the coroner’s needs.

It was his appetites for wine and ale which had served to make Baldwin’s close friend, Simon Puttock, regret ever meeting the coroner. For some reason, the coroner had taken a liking to Simon which had led to hangovers of a virulence that was quite unlike anything Simon had known before.

Baldwin had seen little of Simon recently. They had both been together much of the year so far, but now the two had been separated for some weeks. Simon had once lived near here, over at the farm north of West Sandford, before he had been given the post of bailiff on Dartmoor, but that had necessitated a move to Lydford. Baldwin missed his company.

Still, no matter what Simon thought of him, Baldwin respected the coroner’s judgement and enjoyed his good nature. And did not drink with him.

Not that he would be here yet, Baldwin knew. The journey from Exeter would take him all the morning.

Canon Arthur was anxious when he received the message as he returned to the church. Still, he must obey his master, and he bent his steps towards the dean’s house.

‘Dean? You asked for me?’

Peter Clifford was seated at his table while a dark-haired, bearded man clad in a threadbare red tunic chewed at a little bread and cold ham. The canon recognized him as the knight who had arrived to calm the crowds when Henry’s wife Agatha had been soiled in the roadway. It made him panic for a moment to see the man there.

‘Canon Arthur, I am glad you could come here so swiftly,’ Peter Clifford said. ‘Sir Baldwin here was wondering who might know of the people over at Sandford. Could you help him?’

With that, the dean offered Godspeed to them both and left them alone.

‘I feared you might have been here to complain about the dispute the other day,’ Arthur said with a slight grin.

‘No. These little matters will happen,’ Baldwin said. ‘Please, will you not be seated?’

His questions were concerned entirely with the running of the little vill of Sandford, the quality of the men there, and especially the reeve, Arthur was pleased to learn. He furnished Baldwin with a full list of the senior men of the vill. ‘Ulric the reeve is a strong fellow. Hob is a strange fellow: I cannot ever get away from the impression that he is embarrassed about something when I meet him.’

‘You go there often?’

‘I am responsible for the manors about there which provide us with much of our foods.’ He nodded. ‘I often travel up there and beyond to the granges and barns to ensure that all is well. Hob runs the tavern in the vill, and I stop there for lunch on occasions.’

‘I see. I trust you avoid West Sandford though.’

‘Hmm? Why?’

‘Surely you would keep away from Henry of Copplestone’s house?’

‘Oh, him. Yes. Well, I do for now. But he is a reasonable man, generally. As a merchant, he and I will do business occasionally. I am sure that this affair will blow over.’

‘The matter of Henry’s wife’s dress?’

‘No! That was a mere accident. No, I was thinking of this problem about the sheep. A small flock of mine was allowed to wander, and it ate all his pea crop in an afternoon before anyone saw.’

‘That was why the dispute, then,’ Baldwin said.

‘Yes.’

It was a short ride.

Baldwin’s road followed the River Creedy, curling around eastwards for some way, before leaving the manor’s park and rising up again. The church was prominent before him, with a scattering of little cottages about it, some with smoke rising from holes in the thatch to give a welcoming appearance in this thin rain. It pattered on his cloak as he rode, and he pulled his hood over his head, musing on the dean’s words as he left the church.

‘Thank you for your hospitality,’ Baldwin had said, tugging on gloves while waiting for his horse.

‘You are always welcome here.’

‘One thing, though. You have heard of the matter of Henry of Copplestone’s troubles. Why do you not compensate him for his losses?’

Peter had been still a moment, and he would not meet Baldwin’s eye. ‘What did you think of young Arthur?’

Baldwin was baffled, but if his friend chose to change the subject he would not embarrass him by harping on. ‘He seemed a pleasant enough fellow. Quite efficient and organized.’

‘One must always be aware of younger canons,’ Dean Peter said. ‘They can be more prone to temptations than older men. And he is very aware of his name.’

It had been a curious comment to make, but Baldwin’s horse was being brought to him even as Peter spoke, and in a few minutes Baldwin had mounted and was trotting from the church’s precinct.

The journey was mercifully short. Sandford was fortunate in its location. The lands to the south and west were fertile, with the good, red soil of the area, not that much could be seen now. Everywhere was smothered with plants. Beyond there were orchards, with apples, pears, some cherry trees and others. Here at the side of the road was the vill’s coppice, and men were in there in the rain, hacking away, and only stopping when they saw him. Some stood still and eyed him suspiciously, dark eyes peering from beneath brims.

The road rose up the next hill, but before the crest was a track that passed off to the left. This was a narrower way that suddenly widened into a broad triangular market space. Uncobbled, it was muddy where the grass had been trampled. A road led up to his right from here, up the hill to the church, while another wound off to the left. That, he knew, led to West Sandford and beyond. Simon’s old farm was itself off in that direction. But directly ahead of him was the tavern.

It was not a large building. Little more than a cottage built of cob and thatch on top of a raised mound that sloped steeply down to the muddy roadway. Once it might have been a longhouse, a Devon farmhouse with one area for family living and a second for animals. No longer, though. From the piles of broken timbers and the heap of small stones, it looked as though there had been a structural failure, and the end wall replaced with fresh stones and cob to seal it.

Even had he not known where the murder had been committed the day before, Baldwin would have been able to guess. All about the door to the tavern were the vill’s men and women. Baldwin rode to the edge of the road where a small oak stood, and tethered his mount to a low branch before making his way to the men.

The reeve here was a quiet, usually cheery fellow of middle height, with an open, red face like a ripe apple. Unusually for this area, he had blue eyes and straw-coloured hair, which he kept wedged under a woollen cap, but now he removed it as Baldwin approached, holding it in his two hands. ‘Sir Baldwin, I hope I find you well?’

‘I hope I see you well also, good Ulric.’

‘I am well enough, Sir Knight.’

‘And your wife?’

‘She thrives, Sir Baldwin. And yours?’

Baldwin continued with the lengthy introductions, although he was keen to see the body. There was much for him to be working on when he returned home, and the unpleasant dampness dribbling down his back was a reminder that it would be good to get indoors and out of this downpour, thin though it may be. And yet he would need this man’s help. Ulric was the reeve for a wide area about here, responsible for the vill here at Sandford, and the hamlets at West Sandford, and some five miles all about. Ulric knew all the men personally within that area, and he would be essential as a helper. But Baldwin knew that Ulric had one failing: the man was a menace for the correct behaviour. He would panic if there was the faintest hint of impropriety. For him, to hurry through the greetings would be an insult to him and to the visitor.

At last, when Baldwin felt the man should be content with the health of his wife, his children, his hounds, hawks and stables, he felt ready to ask where the body lay.

‘He’s not been moved, Sir Baldwin. Just in here, if you please.’

He led the way into the tavern. It was a small room, only shoulder height at the walls, but rising up into the thatch overhead. At the middle was a series of planks laid over the beams that held the roof trusses together, which Baldwin knew would be the tavern-keeper’s bed. It was a scant foot over his head, and Baldwin only hoped it was safe. It didn’t look it.

Ulric continued through the building to where a second low door stood ajar.

Inside was a small storeroom and brewhouse. The further wall held a waist-high furnace, with a copper fitting tightly into the stonework over it. A series of barrels lay off to the left, while sacks of grain hung from rafters nearby, off the ground to prevent them growing damp or getting attacked by rodents. The room held the warm, sweet odour of malt, mingled with the more obvious scents of death. And the smell Baldwin recalled so well – burned human flesh.

Baldwin had seen deaths of all kinds in his life. He had witnessed the easy deaths of older men and women, he had witnessed executions, he had seen the slow, agonizing death throes of those dying of starvation, and brutal slaughter during ferocious battles before he began to investigate murders. But when he saw who had died here, he felt a pang of regret. It was rare that he would meet a murder victim only a short while before his death, and when Baldwin met this man, all he had done was insult him.

‘Where’s his friend?’ he said as he squatted near the body.

‘He had none here,’ Ulric said. ‘He came here alone, and died alone.’

‘No? I saw him in Crediton, and there he was travelling with a Welshman.’ Baldwin looked down again. ‘It was a hard death.’

Ulric shook his head sadly. ‘There are few easy ways to die, but whoever did this…’

The body was lying near a wall. Gagged with a cloth, his cheeks were distended, his eyes staring madly in a face that was grey and bloodless in the cold light. His left hand had scrabbled madly in the dirt of the floor, while his legs had been held still by a sack of grain dropped on to them. A trickle of malt had run out and now mingled with the blood that had puddled on the ground.

But the right arm was what took Baldwin’s attention.

‘Have you seen his hand?’ Ulric asked in a fearful undertone.

Baldwin glanced at him. Where the hand had been there was only a bloody stump. Nothing more. ‘Where is it?’

‘Sir Baldwin! Hah! In God’s name, I am glad to see you. How is your wife, eh? The daughter still growing strong and fit? I’ll be bound your little boy’s nothing less than a chip off the old block, eh? Let’s hope the little devil doesn’t have to rest his head on one himself before he’s twenty, though, eh? Ha! No need for the headsman’s axe there, eh?’

This was all delivered at a volume that would have drowned the hucksters at Exeter’s market. Baldwin could almost feel the words assaulting his ears as Coroner Sir Richard de Welles threw his reins to a boy, lifted his leg over his horse’s neck, kicked his other foot free of the stirrup and sprang to the ground as lightly as a man fifteen years younger.

Sir Richard was not so young. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a face that was made to smile, he was a powerful man who wore a thick beard and moustache. He was a kindly soul, though, who had seen much of life. He was often surprisingly sympathetic to victims, because he had seen sadness in his time, losing his young wife when he was still very young, yet he always attempted to see the best in life. There were few situations in which he would not find a grain of humour, and for that if nothing else Baldwin was fond of him. His other traits, bellowing at people as though all peasants were deaf, telling appalling jokes and playing practical jokes when he could, were less endearing.

‘Where’s the stiff, then, eh?’

‘Through here,’ Ulric said starchily. He had not yet been introduced, and he felt that this was an insult to his reeve’s dignity. A reeve was the most senior representative of his area, and for Ulric to be ignored was bound to have been noticed by some of the local villeins. They would make fun of him for this.

‘You are?’

‘I am Ulric, reeve of Sandford.’

‘Master Ulric, you have my apology. I have travelled far today, and was so glad to see my friend Sir Baldwin that I entirely forgot myself. Master, would you do me the honour of showing me the corpse? And if you could let me know his name and anything else you know of him, I would be most grateful. And while we are viewing the unfortunate, if you would be so good as to suggest to the good alewife here that a man who’s ridden close on twenty miles for a sight of a body is likely to have a parched throat, I’d be even more glad. A man could die of thirst here and lose his voice before a body stirred to help him, I dare say.’

Ulric hesitated, overwhelmed by the effusive friendliness as much by the bellowing voice, before waving to Hob and hurriedly leading the way into the back room.

‘Not pleasant,’ Sir Richard said, peering down at the body. ‘Who did it?’

Ulric shook his head. ‘We have no idea.’

‘Who was he?’

‘A pardoner, sir. He arrived here yesterday, no earlier, and came alone. Nobody in the vill knew him, so far as I know. His accent was not local. And I’ve travelled.’

Sir Richard tilted his head to one side and cocked an eye at Baldwin.

‘I think he is right,’ Baldwin intervened quickly before Sir Richard could make a joke about a reeve’s potential journeys. Few would see more than a radius of some twenty miles about their vill in their lifetime, but he knew that Ulric had fought in the king’s wars. ‘I have myself met this fellow, only the day before yesterday. He was in Crediton then. I noticed that he had an accent from the north. I would think he might have hailed from Bristol, or somewhere about that way.’

‘You get his name?’

‘I think it was John.’

‘No need to worry about proving he was local, then. Just a murdrum fine and the usual amercements,’ Sir Richard grunted.

‘He was with another man too.’

‘Aha. You interest me, Sir Baldwin. Who was this other man?’

Huw sat at the side of the road and pulled his boot off, staring at his foot with wry discontent. The hole in the side of his boot had grown, and mud had stained his toes red, as though he was bleeding from a cut. It also let in stones, and he tipped the boot up, watching pebbles and muddy water dribble out.

The weather was atrocious this year. Nearly as bad as the famine years, when all the crops withered where they were planted, the rain flattening them to the ground, drowning the grain and leaving many people to die of starvation.

At least the downpour had eased a little over the morning. Now he was more than a part of the way to the place he thought John had mentioned. Somewhere called Sandford. From the look of it, it was well named, he thought sourly. There was indeed a shallow little ford here, with a wooden bridge for those on foot. Hardly any point in his worrying, though, with this hole in his boot.

A loud thudding of hooves made him look up. Even this close to a large town like Crediton, no traveller could afford to be complacent, not with the numbers of cutthroats and club gangs who roamed the lanes, always seeking out the unwary. And status meant nothing. There were all too many noblemen who behaved in the same manner, stealing anything they might from those who passed near their castles.

All the same, these didn’t look like outlaws. They were not clad in bright armour, but they were on horseback, which together meant well-to-do and less likely to attack. He hoped so, anyway, because it was clear that they had seen him from the way that they slowed and pointed.

No one was safe in this God-forgotten land, Huw told himself as he pulled his boot on again and slowly made to stand up as they approached.

‘You are Huw? The triacleur?’

‘I have been called that. Not that I have much in the way of medicine with me just now, friends,’ he said, observing how two of the men had their hands near their long-bladed knives.

A third held a billhook in his fist, and he pointed it at Huw. ‘He’s a bit past your medicine now, you Welsh git.’

‘Who is? Friends, I don’t know what you mean,’ Huw said, his hands held up in a placatory manner. ‘I stayed overnight in Crediton, and have only just been in a position to set off to meet John.’

‘Who, you say? Your mate, the pardoner. You killed him.’

‘John is dead? It was nothing to do with me!’

‘Tell it to the Keeper!’

To Baldwin’s secret astonishment, the coroner sank three quarts of Hob’s best ale before sitting at the table, belching gently and patting his belly. ‘Ach, there’s nothing so good as a fresh ale on an empty belly. Nothing except a haunch of meat on top of it anyway,’ he added, eyeing the capon roasting over the fire.

‘Do you never suffer from an indigestion? Liverishness? A sore head?’ Baldwin enquired rhetorically. He had never seen the vaguest indication of Sir Richard feeling out of sorts.

‘Me? What do you take me for? Some milksop youth? Eh?’

Baldwin smiled to himself. ‘What do you think of this killing, then?’

‘The entry is clear enough. A man slid himself inside from under the eaves.’

When they had looked about the chamber, the hole at the rear of the room was immediately plain. The cob had fallen away a little, and the thatch pulled apart to leave space for a man to enter.

‘He was so drunk he probably never heard his killer enter,’ Baldwin said. ‘Hob and Ulric both said he was well in his cups and had to leave the room before they went home.’

‘So someone entered afterwards and killed him, before cutting his hand free,’ the coroner said, and belched.

‘Yes,’ Baldwin said.

‘Come along, then – why burn his hand?’

‘I have no idea.’

They had found the hand, scorched and blackened, like some wizened relic, lying in the furnace under the copper.

Coroner Richard grunted. ‘If he thought a little fire like that would do more than singe the hair from the fingers, he was a thoroughgoing idiot,’ he concluded.

‘No man would think a little fire like that would have destroyed the hand. It wasn’t thrown there to be destroyed, not on a little fire of twigs and shavings. No man would think it would work for that,’ Baldwin said.

‘So why put it there?’

‘I can hear horses,’ Baldwin said, climbing to his feet.

They had sent the reeve and some men in the direction of Crediton on horseback to see if any news could be discovered about the triacleur, but that was only a short while ago. There had been no time to ride all the way to the town, let alone enquire. And yet here they all were, riding at a trot, with a bedraggled man hurrying behind, his hands bound with a stout rope that was gripped in the reeve’s own hand.

Baldwin and the coroner walked out to stand near the tree where their horses had been hitched. A trio of young boys were rubbing their horses down and seeing to their water and feed. Baldwin had paid them earlier. His training as a Templar had taught him always to see to the comfort and health of his mount before his own. He walked over and patted his old beast, muttering to him as he gazed along the road at the approaching riders.

They drew up in the market area, and Reeve Ulric clambered down, yanking his prisoner forward. ‘Here’s your man, Sir Baldwin, Sir Richard. A Welshman,’ he added, spitting the word.

Before Baldwin or Sir Richard could comment, a priest appeared, striding down the lane from the church. ‘Is this the man? Is this the killer?’

‘We don’t know it,’ Baldwin said coolly before turning to the man again. ‘What do you say?’

‘I am innocent, Sir Knight. These men found me on the road coming here. They saw me and brought me, but I don’t know why.’

‘You say you don’t know what’s happened to the pardoner, eh?’ Ulric snapped.

There was a flash of fear in the man’s eyes, Baldwin saw. ‘I don’t know what happened to my friend.’

‘You call him your friend?’ Hob said. He was behind Baldwin, and now he stepped forward. ‘Sir Keeper, this man was no friend to the pardoner. The pardoner told me last night that this fellow, who had walked with him all the way from Wales, had said he would see the pardoner in hell before the week was out. They argued, and the pardoner had hoped that they might make amends to each other, but now it’s obvious what happened. This Welshman broke into my tavern to murder my guest in his sleep.’

Baldwin looked at the man they were all accusing. He was a tatterdemalion, it was true. His hosen were beslubbered with mud, his coat stained and marked, his cloak ragged where thorns had tugged at it – but a man’s appearance after a long journey could be deceptive.

He cast a glance up. The sun was hidden behind clouds, which hurried across the sky with a smooth urgency, but there was no sign of serious bad weather. If anything, it seemed warmer. He looked across at the coroner.

‘Do you wish to open your inquest?’ he asked.

‘May as well, I suppose,’ Coroner Richard said, amiably enough. ‘You, man. Yes, tavern-keeper, you. What’s your name? Hob? Fetch more wine. Priest? You’ll have to clerk for me today. I’ve lost my normal ink-dribbler. Ulric? Gather the freemen of the vill here. Come on, man! I don’t have all day even if you do!’

Sir Richard cast an eye around and shot a look up at the sky ‘Bring me a bench,’ he said. ‘We shall begin our inquest here.’

Baldwin ordered that the man’s hands should be unbound as soon as the coroner and he were sitting. There was no need to worry about Huw escaping from here, for he clearly would have little chance of outrunning the men of the vill. Instead, Baldwin allowed him to rub his wrists where the hemp rope had chafed, and let him take his stand near them both. Ulric stood near at hand, watching the triacleur suspiciously and hefting his billhook, while two men went and fetched out the body. They stripped it naked, before rolling it over and over in front of all the freemen of the vill so the wounds could be noted.

The coroner called out a list of the injuries, examining them closely, pulling the head back to show the depth of the wound in the throat, lifting the arm to show where the hand had been cut away. Letting it fall, he turned to the prisoner.

‘Well, Master Welshman, what do you have to say?’

‘I can give no story at all, good Knight, for the simple reason that I’ve no idea what had been done to my old friend. All I can tell is, I was in Crediton last afternoon, and there were many saw me there. One fool had a loud shouting match with me, demanding to know what I was selling, and saying I was selling poisons. That’s why I’ve no bag with me now. I was forced to run and lost all my wares. It was not a good day.’

‘Where did you go after that?’

‘I found a hayloft over near the church. I don’t know whose.’

‘Did anyone see you there?’

‘How would I know?’

‘What of this morning? Did any man see you rise and leave?’

‘I was careful no one did! What would they do to a poor pilgrim of the roadway like me?’ Huw demanded hotly, staring about him at all the grim faces. ‘A stranger and foreigner in a strange land is always suspected, no matter whether he be innocent or guilty. Foreigners are easy to blame, Sir Knight.’

‘That may be true. The guilty are also easy to blame, Triacleur,’ Baldwin noted. He chose not to comment on the fact that a man with so sour a face might expect to be viewed with suspicion.

‘He is the murderer,’ Reeve Ulric said. ‘Listen to him! You can hear the guilt in his voice.’

‘I hear nothing of the sort,’ Baldwin said. ‘Only a man in fear of his life. A justifiable fear, I have to say.’

‘Slipping into a room in the middle of the night – that’s a Welshie trick,’ the reeve persisted.

‘You have experience?’ Sir Richard said at last. He had been sitting with his chin on his fist, elbow on his knee, eyeing Huw with a wary lack of enthusiasm, as he might study a rabid hound.

‘What?’

‘You sound like a man who speaks from experience. Were you in Wales?’

‘I fought there for the last king, God save his memory! Edward the First took me and seventeen others from about here with our lord.’

‘You fought, eh?’

‘We fought much, yes. Pacifying that country was hard work. But we did our duty, although only seven of us came home again.’

‘A shame. I have been involved in battles too.’

‘Sire.’

‘Do you tell me that none of you would slip into a tavern at night to take a swig?’ the coroner asked with a grin lifting one side of his beard. There was a twinkle in his eye as he spoke. ‘You’d be the only men-at-arms ever to be sober, if so.’

‘Perhaps some did take some ale or wine when they may.’

‘Sometimes I’ve known men take more than just a little ale too,’ the coroner reminisced. He looked over at Baldwin. ‘Once one of me own boys took a set of plates from a wealthy merchant’s town house. That was a goodly haul! Too good for that damned churl. Took it meself. Gave him a little coin for it, of course. Damned fool spent it inside an hour at a tavern, I expect.’

‘Aye,’ the reeve agreed, stony-faced. ‘There were some made themselves rich out there. Happy days, for them.’

‘So you admit Englishmen were capable of the same thievery, then, and that you have experience of it. So, then, Reeve, am I to think you did this thing? You wandered in there last night, killed the man and slipped out again, putting into practice all the expertise you built up during your war career? No? Then don’t be so damned keen to blame another man, eh? Now, then.’ He sat upright, glaring about the gathered men with an expression that could have turned ale to vinegar. ‘Did anyone see this man about the vill yesterday or yestere’en? Come, now! All you are happy to accuse the man, but has any man a shadow of evidence? Will any man say they saw him?’

There was no response to that challenge, and Baldwin felt an unaccountable sense of relief. He had no cause to think that the man was innocent, after all, and by his own admission he had argued with his companion. But Baldwin was a renegade Knight Templar. He had seen the punishment meted out to so many of his comrades on the basis of evidence they never saw. It was the foundation of his own loathing of injustice.

The Templars had been arrested and accused of crimes, but not allowed to know what the offences were, when they were committed, how they were committed, nor even who accused them – nothing – and yet were tortured until they ‘confessed’. They were burned, broken and cut without understanding why. Some had their feet roasted until the flesh fell away, and they still did not know why. The experience had taught Baldwin that in the absence of a lawyer there was no justice.

‘Right, then,’ the coroner continued. ‘Who was last to see the man alive?’

This elicited the response that Ulric, Hob, Father William and two or three others had remained in the pardoner’s company. He had grown sleepy some hours after dark, and had gone to his palliasse in the brewhouse before the others had left. Hob had taken the pardoner at his word and continued selling beer on his account, assuming that he would be reimbursed the following morning. Soon his snores could be heard, and then gradually the men had parted. First to go was the priest, then Ulric, and Hob was forced to stay up with the others until he grew bored of their company – and singing – and threw them out in the middle of the night. He had tidied the room, doused his fire and then went to make sure his guest was all right. A scratching noise had made him wonder whether there was a rat in the chamber. As soon as he found the corpse, he raised the hue and cry.

There was more evidence to hear from the men who had been drinking, but little more could be learned. All pronounced themselves moderately drunk and had gone home to their beds.

Baldwin nodded and glanced at the coroner. But there was something in the tavern-keeper’s tone which made him a little suspicious. He felt the man was concealing something. But who in these days of violence and hardship had nothing to hide?

‘In that case,’ Coroner Richard declared, ‘this matter is unsolved. I find that this pardoner has been murdered by a man or men unknown, and that he is not of this parish. The murdrum fine will be imposed, and the weapon used to kill him must have been a knife or dagger. I will say the weapon was worth at least a shilling, and that much is deodand. And now my inquest is closed.’

Father William left the coroner’s court with a feeling of sour disbelief.

There were not many men in this vill whom he would trust, but Reeve Ulric was one. He was an astute man, with the clear sight that most others lacked. He was standing up near the entrance to Hob’s tavern now, and the priest crossed to him with a determined expression on his face. ‘I am sorry that they didn’t listen to you. You were right, I believe, in God’s name.’

‘Well, the coroner didn’t seem so sure,’ Ulric said, still smarting. ‘But I know these Welshies. You can’t trust them. Not that he’d listen.’

‘I’ve known enough knights who couldn’t find their ballocks with both hands,’ Father William said shortly. ‘These two are no different. You going to the fields?’

The reeve nodded, and Father William fetched his own hoe from the shed at the bottom of his chapel before the two men walked to the fields together. ‘You saw how the man broke into the back room?’

‘The hole under the eaves. Must have been easy.’ Ulric shook his head. ‘If that wasn’t a clear proof of the Welshman’s guilt, nothing was. The fellow must have woken and seen his mate climbing in, and thought he was there to make up.’

‘You think so? I’d have thought the pardoner didn’t wake at all. No, if he’d come to and seen the Welshman slipping in, he’d have raised Cain. They separated angrily, didn’t they?’

Ulric nodded. They had both heard the pardoner tell of his fight with his companion, and how he believed that the man could have meant his threat. ‘But I don’t think that mother-swyving-’

William shook his head. ‘Enough. I won’t listen to such language.’

‘Apologies, Father. I forgot I was talking to you. It just makes me angry to think of one of those Welshmen making fools of good Englishmen.’

‘You were out in Wales for a while, weren’t you?’

‘Yes. I saw my own son killed. Some Welsh ambushed us on the way to join the king. He was slain before he had even time to draw a knife.’

‘I am sorry – may he rest in peace… Of course. I had heard – but that was before I came here myself,’ the priest murmured.

The two stood at the edge of the strips, gazing down the lines of vegetables. Mud lay thick and bright, and the rainwater was puddled like blood on the paths between.

Ulric shook his head. ‘Look at all this. It’s wonderful land, this. Perfect. Any man could make a living with it. Rich, fertile land. And what good is it?’

‘You mustn’t upset yourself, Ulric.’

‘Why not? This kind of land is perfect for a man to pass on to his son. Here am I, a freeman, and yet I have no son to inherit my land. No one. What is the point of life when there’s no one to take over, no one to carry on?’

‘You have suffered much, Ulric.’

‘Aye. And for what? It is the saddest thing, to lose your child, to see him die before you.’

‘At least you know his suffering’s over.’

‘Perhaps. I knew there was no good to come of a pardoner’s visit.’

The priest gave him a long, measuring look. ‘I didn’t hear you complain while he was here.’

The reeve wouldn’t meet his eye, but kept his gaze fixed on the weeds. ‘Aye, well, there are some folks you shouldn’t argue against. He might have been an honest pardoner, after all. One of them may be.’ He shrugged and began to trudge to his own strip. ‘I just haven’t met that one yet.’

Baldwin and the coroner demanded some food, and a girl soon brought them a little meat pottage with a loaf of rough maslin, a cheap peasant bread made from wheat and rye.

Coroner Richard eyed the fare sourly. ‘This the best you can do? I am a king’s coroner,’ he grumbled, but set to with gusto nonetheless. ‘What of him?’

‘Him?’ she said, and glanced at Huw. ‘He’s no money to pay for food.’

‘Then put it on my slate,’ Coroner Richard said with a low malevolence. His spoon stopped, hovering near his mouth as he stared at the girl with a fixed determination. ‘Now!’

Reluctantly she went to fetch food for the prisoner. She had been about to get only dry bread, but catching sight of the coroner’s glower she amended it to the same as the two knights themselves were eating.

‘I am thankful, Sir Coroner,’ Huw said hesitantly as the girl disappeared inside again.

Coroner Richard snorted. ‘I’ll still hang you, man, if they find you guilty.’

A little later Baldwin walked back inside the tavern to ask for more ale, and saw Hob in the corner, near the great window that overlooked the village green.

‘Was he successful here, this pardoner?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Did he make much money?’

‘He took many pennies from the people around here. Some women even threw him their rings and bracelets. I saw a gorgeous enamelled-’

‘His purse is still full. What of you? Was it a good evening for you too?’

‘He paid me a little, which I have here-’

‘Show me,’ Baldwin said.

Hob opened his purse and withdrew six silver pennies and a ring. ‘I liked it, and he threw it to me for his food last night and this morning. The coin was payment for ales last night. He bought drinks for others.’

There was a strip of vellum in his purse too. Baldwin nodded at it. ‘A pardon?’

‘I gave him his own ales last night in exchange for this,’ Hob said defensively.

‘You did well,’ Baldwin said with a low whistle.

‘He was a generous man,’ Hob said. He shot a look through the window at Huw. ‘Which is why I want his killer to pay.’

‘It wasn’t me!’ Huw exclaimed indignantly, his mouth full of maslin.

‘Someone shaved his throat for him,’ the coroner said unperturbably.

Baldwin had returned and shared Hob’s words with them. Now he jerked his head back towards the tavern. ‘The pardoner’s purse is still full, so it does not look as though anything was missing. It’s unlikely he was murdered for money. Perhaps someone gave him a trinket for an indulgence, which he later regretted, and he came here to take it back?’

‘Possibly. What of you, fellow? Did you see anything else he could have had that may have been stolen?’ Sir Richard said to Huw.

Huw stared at him, then his eyes went to Baldwin, before they dropped to stare into his bowl. He said nothing for a moment. Then: ‘What of the bones?’

Agatha, wife of Henry of Copplestone, was in an indignant mood that day.

She had told her husband to go and demand an apology for the atrocious insult offered to her, but the feeble old devil wouldn’t think of it. Not even when she had lifted her hem to show how her skirts had been ruined. He just sneered and told her to get the maid to clean it, so instead she had gone to Crediton to purchase more cloth for a new tunic. Let her useless husband see if he preferred that.

If only she had listened to her mother; then she would have wed Cedric instead of Henry. Cedric was already far wealthier than her husband. He had made something of himself, first being apprenticed to a spicer, and now living in Exeter as a professional man himself. With his money, she could have enjoyed a vastly better lifestyle. But no, she’d taken the fool instead. Henry had been there, and she had, to be fair, been quite overturned by his clear adoration. If only she’d been more sensible…

Life was there to be lived though. She wouldn’t spend her life dreaming of what might have been. No. She must seek all the pleasure she might, for life was fleeting.

Riding back homewards, to her hall at West Sandford, she saw a stranger riding on the same road. ‘Do you know him?’ she said to her servant.

Edward, a thin-faced man of some two-and-twenty years, peered over his shoulder, his squint making his face as sharp as a ferret’s. ‘Him? Nah! Never seen him.’

She was not seriously alarmed, for the man appeared to be riding gently enough. Tall, square-shouldered, but with a paunch that implied his wealth, she had been aware of him ever since they had left Crediton.

‘Godspeed, Lady,’ the stranger said as he drew near, doffing his hood. ‘Simon Puttock at your service.’

‘God you keep,’ she responded, bending her head carefully so her wimple wouldn’t fall. It was always a struggle to keep the cursed thing on.

He was a good-looking fellow, this. Grey eyes, set in a sun-browned face which looked as though he was ever ready to smile. Yet there was a certain sharpness to him too, as though he was a man who might be slightly dangerous. Yes, he was a man to watch, she thought.

‘You live near here?’ she asked.

‘I have been some years away. Ten years ago God saw fit to make me bailiff on Dartmoor, and I’ve been living there ever since. But I am returning to live here now. Do you live near?’

‘My husband is Henry of Copplestone. We live at West Sandford.’

‘A good barton,’ Simon commented.

‘Usually. The church has ruined our crop this year. A lazy shepherd allowed the dean’s flock to roam and they got into our peas and ate them all.’

‘I am sure the dean would be pleased to compensate you.’

‘Dean Peter? You don’t know him, then?’

‘He has been a friend for many years.’

She snorted. ‘He has been a torment to me, sire. He has caused me much misery. Our crops gone, and he all but laughed in my face. Then a canon splashed my skirts. Look! Here! And he made no offer to “compensate” me. Nothing!’

Simon gave a sympathetic grunt. ‘But I am surprised. I always found Peter Clifford to be a generous-hearted, good and kindly man. This is a sorry tale, Lady.’

‘Aye. And little benefit will I gain from the telling. There seems nothing a woman might do to win recompense for the harm done to her.’

‘Did you meet your husband here?’ Simon asked, keen to change the subject. He did not like to hear people talking about his friend in such a bitter manner.

‘No, I was born at Morchard Bishop. My husband came from Copplestone, and we rented West Sandford when we were wed.’

‘It was Saul who used to live there,’ Simon recalled. ‘He was a good old fellow.’

‘He lived to a good age. He was almost two-and-forty when he died.’

Simon said nothing. Being almost forty himself, he was always aware of old age looming. ‘Oh.’

They had reached the narrow way that led to the marketplace at Sandford as he spoke, and Simon saw before him the familiar shape of his friend Baldwin. Then he saw the other figure and winced.

Glancing at Agatha, he was about to speak when he saw her frown. ‘Lady?’

‘That man again!’ she spat as she looked at the trio.

Baldwin was soon back with them. ‘No, there are no bones in there.’

‘Come, fellow. Tell us,’ the coroner rumbled. ‘What do you know of these bones?’

Huw licked dry lips. ‘This is a long tale. I am the last of my line. We serve to protect some objects which we venerate most highly. Relics of a man we revere.’

‘Saintly relics all over the place,’ Coroner Richard said.

‘Yes, Sir Richard, but these are different. They are the genuine bones of… a man respected throughout Wales. But a man took some of them. It was him, John the Pardoner.’

‘The dead man?’ the coroner said.

‘Yes. It was some few years ago that Sir William de Grandisson gave our abbey a piece of the True Cross, in the fourteenth year of our lord King Edward’s reign. [6] As soon as it was given, the abbot, Richard Stradell, decided to make a suitable environment for it, and ordered that a special space should be created for this wonderful relic. Stone was delivered, and it unhappily was stored over the top of the corpse of him whom we serve. The masons began their work, and we must remove the box to another safe place. It was taken to a little chapel where it would be safe. Or so we thought.’

‘They didn’t realize it was the bones of this man you revere, eh? Wasn’t the box obvious?’

‘No. To maintain the secret, the box was only a small one. Just large enough to hold the bones within. And a tress of hair. Apart from that there was nothing to declare the sanctity of what it held. Only scratches and gouges from a shovel, they were the only decoration. And it was taken away before it was seen.’

‘Except the pardoner saw it?’ Sir Richard said. ‘And like any other pardoner, he saw a chance for some bones to work with, eh, and grabbed ’em?’

‘I fear so. He visited the chapel and the chaplain saw him praying, but later, when the pardoner had gone, the box had been moved. Some of the bones had been taken. The bones of a hand.’

‘So you took off in pursuit,’ Baldwin said. ‘And followed him all the way down here?’

‘I had no proof it was him who had taken them. I could not simply accuse him of theft without proof. And then, when I was sure at last, and asked him how he came by the bones, he refused to tell me. That was why we separated in such a manner.’

‘You mean you didn’t learn about these bones until you came here to Crediton?’ Baldwin said sceptically.

‘He had the bones, I knew, but he kept them about his person. I didn’t reach him until I arrived in Exeter, and since then I only saw them at Crediton. I had to stay with him until I could be sure that they were the bones I sought. And then, at last he took them from his wallet and showed them, and I was sure that they were indeed the ones that had been stolen. He had the bones of a hand.’

‘So you followed him here and killed him in order to recover them?’ Coroner Richard grated.

‘No, sire. If I wanted to kill him, I could have done at any time between Exeter and here. Why wait until we came here? I admit, he and I parted on no good terms. He denied that he had stolen them, but declared that they were legally recovered by him. At least, he did at first. It was only later that he sneered at me, saying that I should be glad that he was at least showing the bones to some of the world. It made me angry to hear him joke about the bones, but I didn’t kill him. I held my tongue and walked away. You see, I meant to return to his side at Sandford and then to persuade him to give them up.’

‘Or to wait until you and he were on the road in a quiet place, and take ’em, eh? Well,-’ the coroner shrugged- ‘can’t blame you. Would’ve done the same meself. Blasted pardoners are a menace.’

‘Perhaps,’ Baldwin said. ‘But the deed has not been committed. He is innocent. However, I am intrigued. Why did you not take them before? As you say, you travelled all the way here with him. There must have been dozens of places where you could have knocked him on the head and recovered them.’

‘I didn’t wish to kill him,’ Huw said simply. ‘I was in his company, but… well, John was a most engaging companion. I did not want to hurt him too close to Exeter at first, and then I decided not to hurt him until I had seen the bones in his possession, and he didn’t get them out until he reached Crediton. And by that time it was too late.’

‘You mean you didn’t want to kill him?’ Baldwin said.

‘How could I? He was such a friendly, open, amiable man. I couldn’t willingly stick a knife in him. He was a real, flesh-and-blood man, while… they were only bones, when all was said and done.’

Baldwin looked at the coroner. ‘I believe him.’

‘You sure? He could easily have broken into the room at Hob’s. Anyone could, even a Welshman. And there’s the thing about the hand. Surely returning the favour, when he’d stolen the bones from the abbey.’

‘But if Huw did that, he would today be at Exeter or beyond. Why return here? And where are the bones he venerates?’ Baldwin asked flatly. ‘No. He is innocent. Which begs the question: who was responsible?’

‘Baldwin! Sir Richard!’

And Baldwin felt some of the burden of anxiety fall from his shoulders as he recognized the voice of his old friend Simon.

Agatha was keen to leave the vill and return to her home, but her curiosity wouldn’t let her go straight away. She passed her reins to her servant and dropped elegantly from her mount, making her way into the tavern. The serving maid was there, but Agatha went to Hob to ask for a pot of wine.

‘What’s happening here?’

‘Murder, mistress. A pardoner was killed here last night. The coroner and the Keeper are asking about him. It’ll cost us all a pile of silver.’

There was no need to elaborate. All knew how expensive a body could be. There was the fine for the death of a man who wasn’t known locally, the murdrum. An ancient fine, it was imposed at the height of King William’s reign, when the resistance to Norman rule meant that murder was commonplace. If a body was discovered and no one could assert its ‘Englishry’, it was assumed to be a Norman, and a crushing fine was enforced on the locality.

She winced. ‘What of that fellow they’re questioning?’

‘Him? He was friend to the pardoner, he says.’

‘He’s an unpleasant little man,’ she said. ‘He accosted me in the market yesterday. If it wasn’t for a few locals coming to my rescue, I don’t know what might have happened.’

As she spoke she peered through the window. The man with whom she had ridden here was greeting the two knights with enthusiasm.

‘Tavern-keeper, bring more ale!’ the taller, heavy-set knight, whom she knew only as the coroner, bellowed, and Hob hissed to the girl to hurry.

‘Has he seen you?’ Agatha said quietly when they were alone.

‘Don’t think so,’ Hob replied. He chewed his inner cheek fretfully.

‘Let’s hope, then,’ she murmured.

‘Hope what?’ Baldwin asked.

Agatha shot a look at Hob. ‘Nothing, Sir Knight.’

‘That is odd. You see, your maid just told us that she thought you had seen this man outside in Crediton, that he was being a nuisance to you.’

‘Yes, he was pestering a number of people, trying to sell his potions.’

‘Would you come out here, then? You could identify him, and that would be useful.’

‘Why?’

Baldwin lifted an eyebrow. ‘If you saw him in Crediton, that would begin to validate his story. If he was in the town when you saw him, perhaps we can find others who also saw him and who can vouch for his being there later. That would mean it wasn’t him who later came here to kill the pardoner, wouldn’t it?’

She reluctantly nodded and followed Baldwin outside.

‘Is that the man you saw?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Yes.’

Huw gaped. ‘I did nothing to the lady! I was only selling some medicines, and she and her companion refused even to listen. I only urged them to listen to my words, nothing more.’

She reddened. ‘I had no companion, churl. How dare you say such a thing?’

‘But-’

‘There was no one with me, other than my servant,’ she said with emphasis.

Huw followed her gaze to where the servant squatted on his haunches near the horses. It wasn’t the man he’d seen, he thought.

Baldwin saw his look and smiled. ‘Mistress, it is all too easy for a man to mistake one man for another when he meets different people all day, just as it is hard for a woman not to feel pressurized when a hawker is only trying to bring a new sweetmeat or pie to her attention. No doubt this man was only being polite in his own way.’

She nodded, and with a curt nod to Simon she left them, striding to her horse. Soon she was mounted, and she and her servant made their way from the vill.

‘Well, you didn’t make a friend there, Master Triacleur,’ the coroner said, eyeing the two as they rode away. ‘So who could have stolen these bones, then? Someone who wanted to take on the pardoner’s trade?’

‘If it were only that, surely the thief would have taken the vellum as well? A pardoner is no pardoner who does not possess pardons,’ Baldwin said.

‘I must try to find them,’ Huw said. He sat, disconsolate, his face drawn into a picture of complete misery. ‘I should have knocked him down and taken the bones when I first found him, rather than trying to persuade him to give them up. If I’d just taken them, he could still be alive.’

‘Don’t waste your feelings on him,’ Sir Richard said kindly. ‘Worry more about yourself. While no other man appears, you are our most likely fellow for dancing a jig from a rope.’

Baldwin was more interested in Agatha’s reaction to Huw. ‘She was very certain that she was alone when you saw her.’

‘I don’t care what she says. There was a man with her in Crediton,’ Huw said.

‘Do not change the subject by accusing an honest woman of infidelity,’ the coroner said sternly.

‘You don’t understand. I saw him today at the inquest: it was the tavern-keeper.’

The coroner exchanged a look with Baldwin. ‘Well, adultery is not the same as murder,’ he said with a shrug. ‘What of it?’

‘It is one more thing to consider,’ Baldwin said. ‘No more, no less.’

It was a little while later, once Baldwin and Sir Richard had given Huw to a couple of sturdy peasants for safekeeping, that the three repaired to the chapel at the top of the vill to speak to the priest about the pardoner.

‘He’s not here, sires,’ the man in the church told them after they had all bent the knee and crossed themselves at the cross.

‘Who are you?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Me? I’m Peter the Pauper, lord. That’s what they call me, anyways. I keep the church clean for Father William.’

He was a little old man, wizened and with a skin that was tanned deep brown by the elements, with pale grey eyes set in a thin face. His right hand was claw-like from some ancient injury.

‘He is a senior priest for a chapel like this, isn’t he?’ Sir Richard asked, eyeing the altar speculatively. ‘Thought he looked quite an elderly man for such a posting. Why does a chapel this size merit his presence?’

‘Not all priests wish for ever larger congregations, I suppose.’ The man shrugged. ‘And some come to a place like this because it is convenient.’

‘It is that,’ Baldwin said. Close to Crediton and not too far from Exeter, Sandford was a good location for a priest. Far better than some out-of-the-way chapel like Gidleigh, or one of the other churches over to the west of Dartmoor.

‘Where is he?’ the coroner asked.

‘He’ll be with the other men, tending the fields, of course.’

‘So he is a man of humility,’ Simon said.

‘Oh, I suppose so. Although he has a need for it.’

‘What do you mean?’ Baldwin asked.

‘He was the rector of a church in Axminster before he came here. Any man who came here from a minster must have been considered due for some humility, wouldn’t he?’

They soon left the old man and followed Simon down to the strip fields that supported the vill, and before long the three men were walking down the track towards the working peasants and freemen of the vill. It took little time to find the priest and Ulric, both leaning on their tools and watching as the three men approached.

Father William was of only middle height, but he looked taller with his shock of almost-white hair. It was a while since he had last seen the barber, from the way his stubble had thickened on chin and head. ‘You want me again? What, more note-taking? I have work to do, coroner.’

‘I know that,’ Sir Richard said. ‘But first I want to ask you a little more about the pardoner. Did you know he had bones? Apparently he was displaying relics as he went.’

‘Not until he got them out, no. Why should I? But I don’t care what he was doing. When all is said and done, he was only a pardoner.’

‘Who will care about a dead pardoner?’ Ulric demanded. ‘He shouldn’t have been here in the first place.’

‘He sold quite a few pardons, I hear,’ Baldwin said.

‘Aye. What of it?’ Ulric asked.

‘Did you buy one?’

‘No! I have no need of them.’

‘But many did,’ Baldwin said, looking at the priest.

‘Not I.’

‘The others who did must have felt that they had something to protect themselves against.’

‘Men will always think they have a need of protection,’ Ulric said. ‘If they have some spare money, and the pardoner gives a good tale, like this one did, then he will have people flock to him.’

‘They sell lies and deceit,’ the priest said uncompromisingly. ‘The Holy Father in Avignon has authorized some few friars and others to give indulgences, but men like this one are mere pedlars in people’s hopes – and fears.’ ‘You sound like a man who has cause to doubt such people, Father,’ the coroner said mildly.

‘I detest them. Yes, and I hate those who pander to the baser attitudes of the people in the vill. The good Bishop Walter has shown the way with these people, saying that they are not to be welcomed in any of his lands across his diocese, and I support his ban. What, would you have men think that they might commit any sin with impunity just for the price of a letter of indulgence from another man? The Pope may give such a promise, but a man like this dead pardoner? Why should he have the right? Why should any churl without the education of holy orders think himself able to offer God’s own forgiveness?’

‘The Pope has made the pardoner legitimate in the matter,’ Sir Richard said.

‘You find my attitude surprising? What arrogance is it to think that one man alone can appreciate the divine will? I say to you: the pardoners are wrong. They should not be saying that they can help souls. That is the task of priests like me, not secular fellows like that man.’

‘And what of you, Ulric?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Do you think he was as evil as the priest thinks?’

‘I think he was a dangerous man. Anyone who dabbles in pardons for sins which he cannot understand is dangerous.’

‘Where lies the danger? You mean that he will die like John last night?’ Coroner Richard snapped.

‘No. I mean that a fellow who seeks to sell an indulgence thinks that he knows God’s mind. And that itself is more dangerous than the devil. How can a man know God’s will?’

‘A good point,’ Baldwin said. He had noticed that the priest and Ulric had exchanged a look as the reeve spoke, and they remained staring at each other now. ‘The bones, though. They were here on view, I think? Where did they go? They were not there in his bags today, so somebody must have stolen them.’

‘You think so?’ the priest asked. ‘Perhaps they were taken by God, to save them from that man’s perverted, thieving hands.’

There was nothing more that they could, or would, tell him, so it seemed, so the three men thanked the two and returned up the path to the vill.

However, as they reached the market area, Baldwin saw a scruffy little lad, scarcely ten years old, barefoot and filthy, playing with a sling near the horses. As the three appeared, he shot to his feet, a ragged warrior, stuffing his sling into the rope that served him as a belt.

‘Masters, are you seeking the pardoner’s killer? I can help.’

His name, so he said, was Bar. ‘I was here yesterday when the pardoner arrived.’

‘Aye? And what did you see, boy?’ Sir Richard demanded.

The boy was standing, hands behind his back, facing the three men. Baldwin and Sir Richard sat on a bench, while Simon had an old stool at their side. It was an intimidating environment, but the lad seemed unconscious of the fact.

‘He saw me. I was out at the chapel trying to hit a magpie in the tall elm,’ he said, pointing, ‘when the pardoner walked up. He gave me a drum and told me to beat it to call people here to his “pardon”.’

‘He had no permission to beat it here, then?’ Baldwin said. ‘That may explain the priest’s animosity…’

He saw the lad staring uncomprehendingly.

‘Why the priest disliked him,’ Baldwin explained.

‘No, he saw Father William first. I saw him coming down here from the chapel. Father William approved.’

‘That scarce accords with the priest’s story,’ Sir Richard muttered. ‘Aye, so what then, boy?’

‘He sold his scraps of parchment while people knelt and kissed his licence, and he showed them his goose feather and his bones, and then people paid more. And then they left him.’

‘What did he do?’

‘He took me to the tavern here, and gave me two pennies. Silver ones. And he gave me a quart of strong ale, while the tavern-keeper gave him as much ale as he could drink in exchange for a strip of the parchment.’

‘So Hob had a pardon too?’ Baldwin said.

‘Yes, I think he needs it,’ the urchin said with a sly smile.

‘Why, boy?’ the coroner demanded. ‘In Christ’s name, the people of the vill here speak ever in riddles. Just give us some clear answers!’

‘Hob has been swiving the mistress of West Sandford.’

‘Does everyone know of it?’ Sir Richard demanded.

Baldwin smiled to see the expression on the coroner’s face. ‘No need to repeat that, lad,’ he said. ‘And what proof do you have of that rather inflammatory remark?’

‘It’s known all over the vill. The only man who doesn’t is her old man,’ the boy said. ‘She’s always with him – here or in Crediton. Everyone knows about him and her.’

It was all too common, Baldwin knew. So often the last person to hear of adultery was the cuckold himself. Simon was thinking the same thing, he saw. ‘The man Hob had a parchment in his purse, just like a pardoner’s indulgence,’ Baldwin said.

‘It would not surprise me,’ Simon said in answer to his look. ‘She was a comely woman.’

‘Hardly what I’d say about the tavern-keeper, though,’ Baldwin said.

The coroner glanced at him, then looked up at the inn. ‘So this good taverner has bought an indulgence for himself because of an amatory matter with the woman from West Sandford, then? I thought he said he had no such parchment.’

‘We shall need to speak to him,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘Boy, what else can you tell us?’

‘Hob gave the pardoner as much ale as he could drink in exchange for the parchment, but others there wanted his aid as well.’

‘The priest is clearly against the sale of pardons here. Why would he allow this fellow John to sell them?’

‘I don’t know. But he was with the pardoner before he started to sell them. I saw them.’

‘It is an odd thing,’ the coroner said. ‘Why would the priest allow the sale to go on, if he is as vehement against the whole principle as he says he is?’

‘There are some who will rail against a thing, but when money is given to them, suddenly their antipathy is turned to quiet reflection,’ Baldwin said.

‘He maybe took money and regrets it now,’ Simon said.

‘Perhaps,’ the coroner said. ‘What of this man at West Sandford though?’

‘I don’t know who he is,’ Simon said. ‘Still, it couldn’t have been him if he was in Exeter like his wife said, could it? And I fail to understand why he would want to kill a pardoner.’

‘The man sold a pardon to his wife’s ravisher,’ Sir Richard pointed out.

‘I think most men would seek the death of the adulterer rather than the pardoner,’ Baldwin said gently.

They were outside the tavern now. The boy had been sent on his way, with a half-penny from Baldwin for his information, and now they were staring at the figure of Hob as he toiled up the hill towards them.

‘Masters! Can I fetch you more ale? Some food?’

‘No, Master Taverner, you can explain yourself to us,’ Baldwin said with some harshness. ‘You have lied to us, master, and we wish to know why.’

Instantly the man’s face fell. ‘Lied? My lords, I wouldn’t-’

Baldwin shook his head. ‘It is no good, man. You will have to speak.’

‘I don’t know what you want.’

‘Try telling us the truth,’ Coroner Richard grated, ‘if you wouldn’t test the comfort of the gaol at Crediton! Do you still say you had nothing to do with the murder of the man in your tavern?’ he demanded.

‘No! Why would I seek his death!’ Hob protested.

‘Perhaps he saw you with your woman, just as Huw did,’ Baldwin suggested shrewdly.

‘No – I swear it on the Gospel.’

‘What of others? Last night, did you see anyone who could have had something against the pardoner?’

Hob looked up at all their faces, then down again. ‘One man, yes. When I opened the doors and threw out the others, I did see one – or so I thought.’

‘Where?’

‘Over at the edge of my house. But I never thought it would be him. He had nothing to want to kill this pardoner for…’

‘Who?’

‘Agatha’s husband, Henry of Copplestone. I thought I saw him over at the side of my house. That was why I made sure I locked the door carefully before going up to my bed. I thought he could try to enter to kill me. But he would do nothing against the pardoner. Why should he?’

Once outside, Baldwin and Simon exchanged a look. ‘Well?’ Simon said.

‘Clearly pointless. There is much we may say of a married woman who behaves like a whore,’ Coroner Richard said uncompromisingly. ‘But what of it? It’s got damn all to do with the murder of the man in the tavern. At least, so far as we can tell, it hasn’t.’

‘No,’ Simon said, but now he remembered the woman’s words on seeing Baldwin and Richard questioning Huw as he rode into the vill. ‘Except she clearly had something against the Welshman when we rode into the town. That itself strikes me as odd.’

‘He saw her with her lover in Crediton,’ Baldwin said. ‘Perhaps she realized that he might speak to us – as he did,’ but as he spoke a vague memory occurred to him.

‘You have a constipated look about you, man,’ the coroner said.

‘When I saw the pardoner and Huw in Crediton, I could have sworn I saw Agatha running away from me,’ Baldwin said, and told of the glimpse he’d had of her and a man flying away up the hill. But even as he spoke he was reminded of the curious comment of Dean Peter – that Arthur was prey to temptations. At the time he had not taken much notice, thinking the dean meant only that a young man’s eye could be taken by a comely woman, but now he wondered whether he had taken the dean’s meaning correctly. Perhaps the dean knew something about the canon.

‘So what do you want to do now?’ Simon asked.

Coroner Richard grunted. ‘Gentles, there is only one way in which we may ease our concerns in this matter. Let us go to her house and ask the woman’s husband whether he was there, as the tavern-keeper thought, or not!’

The journey took little time – it was such a short distance that none of them bothered to mount their horses; instead, the three friends walked along the lane.

‘What do you think?’ Simon asked as they walked.

Baldwin looked over at him. ‘Well, the tavern-keeper was having an affair with Agatha. It’s possible her husband learned of it and went to kill him – and yet any man who entered that tavern must notice that the man’s bedchamber is up in the rafters. I saw it up there the first time I walked inside. So if he went in and killed the pardoner, that would be because he had a reason to, not because he fell over a new body and killed him in mistake. And why cut off his hand?’

‘We can hopefully learn more in a short time,’ Coroner Richard said. ‘Meantime, Baldwin, do you suspect any other?’

‘I would feel sure that Hob himself is likely to be innocent. He does not show any signs of blood about his body.’

‘Why would a man cut the pardoner’s hand off?’ Simon mused.

The coroner shrugged. ‘Surely because he had taken another man’s hand.’

‘But who would have known that apart from Huw?’

‘He was hardly in the vill long enough to have told anyone,’ Baldwin considered. ‘Unless he allowed it to slip when he was in the tavern that night.’

Just then they rounded a corner, and before them lay the long hall of Henry of Copplestone.

It was a large property. A longhouse, with a separate byre behind, two small barns and a stable-block all spoke of Henry’s wealth. To emphasize his position, the land all about had been splendidly cultivated, with a series of pastures and good strips of fields dropping down towards the stream at the bottom of the lands.

Silently, the three marched to the door and were welcomed by a maidservant who took them over the threshold and into a large hall, well illuminated by the enormous window in the southern wall.

Soon Henry and his wife were with them.

Henry was a short, swarthy man with the eyes of a seaman, permanently squinting as though peering into a strong wind. His hands were muscular, but Baldwin was not sure whether the man had the strength of will for violence.

His wife was very pretty, although now, seeing her more closely, Baldwin was struck by how her looks melded together to produce a less wholesome picture. His own wife was a perfect combination of imperfections that somehow made her extraordinarily attractive to him. This woman was almost perfect in every way, and he found that his initial reaction to her was of stunned admiration. But the vision of beauty was marred. There was a harshness to her eyes, he thought, and few signs of womanly softness. All was angular, crisp and precise, not comforting. She was shrewish, if nothing else.

‘Lordings, you honour my home with your presence. I am only sorry that I don’t think I will be able to help you overmuch. How may I serve you?’

‘Master Henry, we are most grateful for your gracious welcome,’ the coroner began. He wore an unaccustomed look of wariness, as though rather nervous of how to broach a difficult subject.

Baldwin decided to save him any embarrassment. It was a curious word to apply to the coroner, but clearly the man was shamed by the reference he must make to the woman’s infidelity. ‘This is about the matter of the dead man, you will understand,’ he said.

‘Of course.’

‘We do not have a good understanding of the affair as yet,’ Baldwin said. ‘We are trying to understand what people here in the vill may have felt about the dead man – and his friend. We have heard that others saw the pair of them in Crediton. Did you?’

‘Me?’ Henry asked. ‘No. I was in Crediton yesterday, but came back early this morning, and didn’t see any strangers so far as I know. Mind, I was working in my storehouse in the town, not wandering the streets!’

‘That is good,’ Baldwin said. ‘Tell me, what kind of business do you run?’

‘I have a number of little ventures, but I sometimes dabble in purchasing wine in Exeter and send it to different taverns and inns. I have some good Guyennois wines just arrived.’

‘I see.’ Baldwin considered. ‘I have heard that you have experienced troubles with the church. Their sheep?’

‘Aye, yes. The black-hearted devils let their flock ruin my crop – and then refused to repay me for the damage!’

‘And I think your wife was insulted by the canon two days ago,’ Baldwin said.

The scene of that morning blazed with a greater clarity on his mind. He remembered seeing the two men approaching him, the flash of this woman running away from the road, his initial thought that others too would keenly avoid the likes of a pardoner and his companion – and then he realized his error. The surprise made him almost gasp.

Henry appeared not to have noticed. ‘She did? Oh, it was him splashed her, was it? He’s a pleasant enough fellow. Not the brightest. Lousy negotiator, that I know, for if I weren’t so honest I could have gulled him out of a barrel in every ten I sold him.’

‘You still have dealings with the church?’

‘I’d be a fool not to. But the peas are ruined.’

‘Sir, perhaps your wife could show me the crop?’ Baldwin suggested. ‘I have some little influence with Dean Peter. Perhaps I could…?’ ‘Yes, by all means. I can show you myself,’ Henry said.

‘There is no need. You stay here and answer my good friends’ questions, and we shall be away from you all the sooner,’ Baldwin said smoothly, and was through the door in a moment.

‘They’re over here,’ Agatha said, lifting her skirts as she passed over the muddy paths.

‘Have you been carrying on many affairs?’ Baldwin asked.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, but now her face was colourless.

‘You saw me that day when the pardoner and his triacleur appeared, didn’t you? You saw me and fled rather than let me see you. You and a man in clerical robes. A canon… It was Arthur, wasn’t it?’

‘What of it?’ The colour had returned to her now, in bright scarlet at her cheeks. It made her look as daunting as an empress.

‘You are having an affair with Hob, I know. However, now I am forced to wonder whether you are also having an affair with the canon too.’

Perhaps that was what Peter Clifford had meant when he said that his young canon was tortured by temptations. This woman had decided to ensnare him too. There were women with voracious sexual appetites, Baldwin knew.

‘I… I cannot speak without you twisting my words…’

‘I care not about your affairs,’ Baldwin hissed. ‘All I wish to know is what happened to the pardoner in that room. Do you know who could have had anything to do with it?’

‘No! Why should I?’

‘Because Hob thought he saw your husband outside his tavern last night when he was pushing the others through his door.’

‘But Henry wouldn’t have hurt that man…’

‘He would have wanted to hurt Hob, wouldn’t he? And how better to do that than to leave all assuming that Hob had killed another in his tavern?’

‘Henry wouldn’t do that. He’s too weak to hurt a man anyway, but if he were to try it, he’d stab a man in the chest while looking into his eyes. But I don’t think he ever would. He is the softest-hearted man I’ve known.’

As she spoke, the servant Baldwin had seen at her side in the vill came out and stared around him.

‘He is looking for me,’ she said, and there was a tone of fear in her voice.

‘What of it? He’s a servant.’

‘I must go!’

‘Why should she be so scared of a servant?’ Simon asked as they walked back to the vill.

‘Perhaps he suspects her of adultery – or knows of it?’ Baldwin wondered. ‘He may blackmail her.’

‘Did she admit it, then?’ the coroner said.

‘She did not deny the affair with the tavern-keeper, but she was emphatic about not carrying on with the canon.’ Baldwin frowned as he realized that he had not asked what she was doing with the canon in Crediton that day as they ran away. Clearly there was a secret matter being conducted there, whether or not there was a relationship.

‘Hardly makes her a saint,’ the coroner commented gruffly. His own wife had died some years before, far too young, and he still sorely missed her.

‘What of Henry? Did you gain an inkling as to whether he had been at the vill?’ Baldwin asked.

‘He did not deny it,’ Simon said. ‘But there was no sign of rage, only a quiet introspection. It was just as though he had some other grievance. He didn’t strike me as a raging cuckold – did he you, Sir Richard?’

‘No. Just a businessman with a problem to solve. Who doesn’t have them now?’

Baldwin nodded.

‘All of which gives us little help in this inquest,’ Simon said.

‘Correct. True, it is hard to understand who may have wished to commit this murder,’ Baldwin admitted.

‘Surely this matter of the woman and her lover must have something to do with it,’ the coroner said.

‘I am inclined to the view that the servant is more guilty than she,’ Baldwin said. He mused. It was a strange fear on her face when she saw the servant coming to seek her.

‘Should we go back to talk to him?’ Simon said.

‘If we do, and he has some sort of hold over her, it would make trouble for her without reason,’ Baldwin said.

‘She mayhap deserves it,’ the coroner said.

‘Perhaps there has been enough passion already in this case,’ Baldwin said. ‘I would not care to learn that she has been killed by a jealous husband.’

‘Hah! That woman reminds me of a joke,’ the coroner said. ‘A man was talking to a fellow in a tavern and asked if he was married. “Aye, and not once but three times,” was the reply. “Oho! How so?” “Because all three hanged themselves from my old apple tree,” the man said. The first was quiet a moment, and then asked, “Would you consider selling me a cutting of this tree?” Eh? Ha! And perhaps poor Henry should have a similar tree in his own garden for that harridan.’

‘Do not judge her too harshly, Sir Richard,’ Baldwin said. ‘You were fortunate to be happily married. Who can say but that their marriage is unhappy? I have seen too many women made miserable in constraining relationships.’

‘So have I,’ the coroner growled. ‘But that doesn’t excuse a woman whoring.’

‘Whom do you suspect, then? The Welshman?’

Sir Richard was about to respond when the three men were stopped by screams from behind them. ‘What in God’s name…?’ the coroner blurted, but then he was already running back the way they had all come, Simon and Baldwin close behind him.

They had to run a matter of only two hundred yards, but to Simon it felt like a thousand. Once he had been fit enough to walk thirty miles in a day over Dartmoor, but now he was older, heavier and more prone to sitting on a horse.

It felt as though his lungs must burst as he pelted along, the rough, stone-strewn surface of the track threatening his ankles, their sharpened edges cutting into the soles of his cheap boots, and he was aware of a hissing in his ears, a heat rising to his face, a fading power in his legs. He had to wipe the sweat away from his face as he went, but then to his relief he saw the woman running towards them, and he could bend, take a gulp of air, rest a fist on his thigh and catch his breath.

‘Help! Murder! Murder and robbery!’ she was crying as she came.

Baldwin and Sir Richard exchanged a look. There was no blood on her, so far as Baldwin could see, and he held up a hand to calm her. ‘Mistress Copplestone, what is the matter? We returned as soon as we heard your plea for help, but what is the matter?’

‘Henry! He’s dead! Edward killed him and ran!’

She collapsed sobbing, and Simon stayed with her while the others bolted back to the house. Gradually her panicky panting calmed, and Simon could persuade her to rise with him and begin to walk back to her house. On the way they found Baldwin returning.

‘The good coroner will remain until we have the hue and cry come to seek the murderer. Come, Mistress Agatha, do you have a friend in the vill here?’

‘None! None at all!’

‘Then at the least we may as well install you in the tavern. You will be able to drink some wine there.’

‘What has happened?’ Simon asked.

‘It was our servant.’

‘You were scared of him earlier, I saw,’ Baldwin said.

‘Yes! He knew of my… with Hob. You know.’

‘You feared he would tell your master?’

‘Yes, of course I did. I thought he would denounce me unless I did all he wanted.’

‘Of course. Tell me, though. Huw was convinced that you were not with him in Crediton when he saw you.’

She reddened, but then her chin rose and she met his gaze. ‘No. It wasn’t him. I was with Arthur, the canon from the church.’

Baldwin shook his head. ‘You did seek to-’

‘No!’ she snapped. ‘I was not seeking an affair with him. My husband’s servant made me go to see the canon and bring him to my husband’s warehouse. There Arthur and Edward were having dealings. Edward bought the church’s produce and sold it on to his and Arthur’s profit, using my husband’s contacts. It impoverished Henry’s business, but what might I do? I could only do as Edward told me. I had no choice.’

Baldwin said nothing. It explained much. If this Arthur was conducting business to his own benefit, and submitting to the temptation of money, that could well be what Dean Peter had alluded to. And it explained why the dean was reluctant to compensate Henry and Agatha for losses in their garden if he thought that Henry was already robbing him. And why should he think that Arthur was collaborating with a mere servant? If the dean had suspicions, it was more likely that they would focus on the owner of the house where the goods were being traded.

‘I didn’t want to help him rob the church,’ she said with a little, quiet voice.

‘Let us take you to the tavern,’ Simon said gently.

Later, they were sitting about a fire in the tavern together while they waited to hear about the posse sent after Edward.

‘Could the servant have killed the pardoner?’ Simon wondered.

‘It would be a cleaner end to the story if he was guilty of all,’ Baldwin said.

‘Either him or Agatha’s husband,’ Simon said. ‘He was seen here.’

‘I cannot forget the man’s hand in the fire,’ Sir Richard said. ‘Why would either of them do that?’

‘If a man was disgusted with the actions of the pardoner and thought that the bones were genuine, he may have done that in punishment,’ Simon mused.

‘What, a hand has touched something sacred so it should be cut off?’ Baldwin said with a smile.

‘Why not, Baldwin?’ Simon said. ‘Think of it. The Gospel says “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out”, doesn’t it? There are some who’d think the pardoner was an offensive man who was polluting incorruptible relics.’

‘Old bones in a pardoner’s hands are unlikely to cause so much offence,’ Baldwin scoffed.

The coroner was less sure. ‘God can give miracles from such things, Baldwin. There are many pieces of Christ’s cross throughout Christendom. I once heard a friar say that all are from the True Cross. Even though there is more wood there than would build many such crosses, it matters not. It’s like feeding the thousands with a couple of fish and all were full afterwards. He can make things like this happen. These relics may be as potent as any other. If someone thought that, he could have taken off John’s hand for the insult he gave to relics. And then taken them for safekeeping.’

‘Perhaps so. In which case, who was it?’ Baldwin asked sharply. ‘There is no evidence to suggest who could have done it.’

‘Surely the most religious man?’ Coroner Richard said. ‘He is plainly the man with the most incentive. And offended by the pardoner.’

‘Very well,’ Baldwin sighed. ‘But he seems so mild-mannered. What sort of a man would…?’

He stopped suddenly, closed his eyes and shook his head.

‘What is it, man?’ Sir Richard asked.

‘I am a fool!’

They found the priest in his chapel, bent almost double before the altar. Under the vill’s pall lay the body of the pardoner, wrapped in linen.

He heard them enter but gave them no acknowledge ment, merely remaining with his hands clasped, until he nodded briskly to himself and stood.

Turning to face them, he looked them over carefully and made his way along the empty hall to the door. Departing by it, he stood waiting for them outside.

‘A shame to have no one to stand by the body over the night. I must pay one of the poorer parishioners to sit up with the man.’

‘He won’t care much now,’ Coroner Richard said.

‘How do you know?’ the priest asked. ‘He may be waiting even now in Purgatory, hoping that someone will sit in vigil and pray for him. God knows, he had enough to pray for.’

‘Why do you say that?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Isn’t it obvious? A dealer in trinkets, in false promises of pardon, in fake relics. What would you think of his chances?’

‘You hate men like him, don’t you?’ Coroner Richard said.

‘I hate the things they do. Like building up people’s hopes by lies. That is a cruel and evil thing to do.’

‘You were at the tavern last night,’ Simon said. ‘Did you return to kill him?’

‘Me?’ Father William looked at him.

The coroner grunted. ‘You know as well as I that, if you did, it would not be to your detriment. You can claim benefit of clergy, entirely safe in the knowledge that you would never face a rope. There is nothing to prevent you confessing.’

‘I think any confessions should be made to my confessor,’ Father William said.

‘He repelled you, didn’t he?’ Baldwin said. ‘That is why you happily shield the man who killed him.’

‘Do I?’

‘Where are the bones?’

‘Perhaps I do not know.’

‘Oh, you know, Father,’ Baldwin said. ‘You may hate men who deal in false pardons, but you’d be keen to look after the relics in case they were genuine.’

‘Of course I would – if I knew where they were.’

‘You do,’ Baldwin said. ‘And I think you know who killed the pardoner.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, it was a discussion we were having a little while ago, my friends and I. The good coroner said that you were the clear suspect in the matter, because you made your hatred of the dead man so plain. And that struck me. Because, of course, only you could do that safely. You have the benefit of clergy, so you are secure from serious punishment. No one will hang you.’

‘What of it?’

‘So you sought to divert us from the man who was guilty.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘Who, though?’ Baldwin continued. ‘I can only assume that the man was the one with whom you were talking when we spoke to you. You sought to move our attention from him and on to yourself. And we were speaking with you and Ulric, weren’t we?’

‘He has nothing to do with this. He was an-’

‘What? An innocent? Even though he murdered a man? You have a curious attitude to one who would kill an innocent for no reason.’

‘He had reasons,’ the priest said with chilling certainty.

‘And they were good enough to justify letting him go free while we arrested and possibly executed another innocent man?’

‘Oh, what do you know of such matters? You have no idea what Ulric went through when he was in Wales. You know he lost his only son there? You prate on about innocence – what about his own boy?’

‘What of his boy? The man he killed isn’t Welsh. This was no revenge attack on a man who represented the fighters who killed his son. This was a mere pardoner minding his own business, man,’ the coroner rasped. He stepped forward, and Baldwin thought for a moment he was about to punch the priest.

‘Of course he wasn’t – but he had the bones, you fool!’

‘What do you mean?’ Baldwin asked, restraining the coroner with a hand.

‘The bones of King Arthur! The Welsh king who would rise and conquer England!’

They retired to a bench outside the tavern, and Hob brought jugs of cider to refresh them all as the priest reluctantly told them the full story.

‘He was in the tavern bragging about the blasted things. A handful of bones, he said, but worth a king’s realm, if they were to get into the wrong hands. Apparently he was there at Abbey Dore, when a piece of the abbey floor was taken up. There were many there, because the abbey had been given something to install there, and they wanted to give it a suitable location. No one thought much of it, so John said. But then the workmen brought up this box, apparently. Inside were bones, and it was nothing to him. He thought that they were just a set of human remains, nothing more.’

‘What did he do?’ Baldwin asked, although he knew the answer.

‘When it was dark, he went inside and stole a handful of them. It’s what pardoners do, as you know well enough. If there’s something they can get for nothing, they’ll take it. And so he did. And it caused his death.’

Father William shifted uncomfortably. ‘He told us all about the bones that night in the tavern. He hadn’t known anything about them, just grabbed what he could and made off, back this way. Somehow he heard that he should beat a retreat, because these bones are those of Arthur, and there were many in Wales who would seek to recover them and kill whoever might have desecrated them.’

‘And Ulric did their bidding for them?’ Baldwin said.

‘Sweet Jesu! Are you so stupid, man?’ William spat. ‘I am sorry, Sir Knight,’ he added quickly, seeing Baldwin’s expression change. ‘Forgive my words. But no, Ulric killed the man to rescue us from the bones! The pardoner was anxious about them, and even suggested that he should take them back to the grave.’

‘Where they would pose an everlasting threat?’

‘Exactly. If the bones are kept separate, how could this Welsh Arthur return to life and rescue Wales from the English, rightful king? No, the only sensible route was to rescue the bones.’

‘Ulric went in there, took the bones, and all to protect the country?’ the coroner rumbled doubtfully.

‘He sought to prevent the risk of another war,’ Father William said. ‘He has lost his own son. He didn’t want to see another family lose theirs.’

‘That is fine – but why cut off the man’s hand?’ Simon demanded.

‘Ulric is religious. How else would you treat the hand of a thief who had polluted the burial place of an important man?’

‘So he cut it off to burn it?’ Baldwin said. ‘Where is he now?’

‘I don’t know. He has fled the vill. You won’t find him.’

‘You underestimate the authority of a Keeper of the King’s Peace,’ Baldwin said. ‘What of Henry? We have heard that he was in the vill that night too. Hob thought he saw him.’

‘He was a sad man. He feared that his wife was a harlot. Perhaps he was here to see if Hob was entertaining her? I don’t know.’

Saturday before the Feast of St John the Baptist, [7] Sandford

It was only the middle of the following day when the murderer of Henry was brought back. His arm was broken, his face bloodied, but he confessed to his crimes before Baldwin and Sir Richard.

‘The church can afford to lose a little grain, some barley and wine. I wasn’t taking it on my own. Why shouldn’t I do it? I saw how to take it, and was bold enough to try.’

Baldwin said: ‘Your accomplice was a canon.’

‘Aye, the milksop brat Arthur. Pathetic churl, he is. Scared of his own shadow much of the time. But he was happy to take the money. He brought sacks of grain, barrels of wine and other goods straight to me, and I sold them on our account through my master’s business. We took the money in our purses.’

‘And you forced your mistress to help you?’ Sir Richard said.

‘Aye. And did she tell you why? It was because-’

Sir Richard stepped forward quickly, and his gloved fist swept backhanded across the man’s face. ‘I won’t have you insulting the poor widow only a day after you killed her man! Be silent, dog!’

As the semi-conscious man was dragged away, Sir Richard averted his gaze from Simon and Baldwin. ‘Can’t have the poor woman’s name dragged through the mud.’

‘Indeed not!’ Baldwin said, adding: ‘And what use would it serve to have Henry shown to be a cuckold now he is dead?’

Morrow of the Feast of St John the Baptist, [8] Sandford

It was three more days before the men returned with the body.

‘We didn’t want to have to kill him, Sir Baldwin, but he wouldn’t surrender. I had three men against him, but he wouldn’t submit, no matter how much we demanded that he yield.’

The constable was a short, rather slender youth with the black hair and eyes of a Celt, but now he stood with a broad-brimmed hat twisting in his fingers as he told his tale. ‘I didn’t want this,’ he finished miserably.

‘He fought?’

‘On foot with only a knife. All of us had staves. We had to do something, so I gave the order, and while two penned him in I thrust at him with mine.’

Baldwin nodded as he stood beside the coroner staring down at the dead reeve. It was astonishing how much damage an oaken staff could do to a man’s face. The staff had been thrust hard, and the weight of the oak had driven into Ulric’s face at the side, but had slipped into his temple. It had crushed the thin bones. All the side of his head to a point over his ear was bloodied, the skull fractured. ‘He would have felt little, friend,’ he said.

‘But why didn’t he just come back with us? Or seek sanctuary in a church? There was no need for him to die.’

‘He sought to protect us all,’ Baldwin said and sighed. He weighed the little purse in his hand. The contents rattled almost comfortingly, like ivory. ‘With your leave, coroner?’ he asked.

‘Nothing to do with me. I’m only the coroner.’ Sir Richard smiled.

‘Then, Huw, here!’ Baldwin said, and threw them at their guardian. ‘And may you find your journey homewards is easier than the one here. Godspeed.’

Thursday after the Feast of St John the Baptist, [9] The Church of the Holy Cross

and the Mother of Him Who Died Thereon, Crediton

‘So you left him to go on his way?’ Dean Peter said.

‘Yes. What else might we do?’ Baldwin said.

‘It is probably for the best. And in the meantime, as you suggested, my good canon, Arthur, is to be left in a cell to contemplate his own part in this sorry tale.’

‘He confessed?’

‘As soon as he heard that his accomplice had told the full story, yes. It took a little while. He has defrauded the church of moneys ever since he took up his duties. A sad man, indeed.’

‘At least you know now that Henry himself was innocent.’

‘I suppose so. I admit, however, old friend, that I am surprised you permitted the bones to be sent back to Wales. Did you not fear that they may indeed be those of this Welsh figure?’

‘Arthur? Nay, Peter. Why, the real Arthur was found at Glastonbury by the old king, wasn’t he? I remember that.’

‘No. Not found. The bones were discovered – oh, over a hundred years ago, certainly. The old king, Edward of blessed memory, took those bones and moved them to the new shrine fifty years ago, so that they could be properly revered.’ Peter peered into his goblet and sighed. ‘But the men who rally to a saint often don’t know the precise antecedents of the relics they possess. Who can say that the bones found originally were still the same as those collected up by King Edward I and reinterred in the choir of the abbey? Who can say the first bones were truly those of King Arthur?’

‘True. But I think it is enough to know that a man’s bones will be reunited. It may not matter to his soul, but it can do no harm either. Or so I hope and believe anyway,’ Baldwin said.

‘I only hope Huw makes the journey homewards safely.’

But Huw was not going to return home. Not now. By stages he crossed the countryside to Exeter, where he stayed for two days, walking the streets and thinking about the bones.

The chapel was no longer safe. It would be dangerous to return there with the bones now that he had told others of it. He couldn’t in truth remember whether he had ever mentioned the precise location of the chapel to the coroner and his friends, but the fear was there that he had. And if news of the bones of King Arthur came to the ears of those who might seek to destroy any hopes of the Welsh rising against their English oppressors, they could too easily be taken.

He could, of course, take them back to Abbey Dore, but if he did there was no certainty that he would be able to secrete them inside safely. Before, he had Owain, but that had been almost four years ago, and in God’s name Owain had looked frail enough then. What if he was dead? There was no one else to whom he could give the bones in the abbey. He knew no one there. The alternative was to find somewhere else to place the bones.

Many cities had their own places to store bones. Here in Exeter there was a great cemetery by the cathedral – but the bones would be sure to be dug up. The cathedral had a monopoly of burials for the city – the graveyard was already crowded, and bones were regularly dug up by the sexton and removed to the big Charnel Chapel near the west door. Huw couldn’t bear to think of his bones being separated. They must be kept together.

On the third day he finally came to a decision and walked from the city on the old road to Bristol. Five miles from Exeter he came to a large open field, and here he paused, looking about him. A hill rose on his left, further to his right he recognized a line of trees, and he nodded to himself.

‘Not long now,’ he muttered to the soft leather package about his neck.

He trudged along the tracks until he had passed a vill which was familiar, and then turned west, down to a stream. Here at the ford, he smiled and grunted to himself. There was a thick mess of brambles, and beneath them a hole such as a vixen raising cubs might make. Carefully he reached into the hole until he felt the sharp edge of the box, almost at the extent of his arm’s reach. Before long he was digging with his hands, hauling away the soil which he had piled up on the day when he had first seen the pardoner and taken the decision to hide the bones in order that he might rescue those John had stolen.

Later, sitting at a fire in woods not far from the roadway, he opened the box and reverently laid the leather purse inside.

‘My king, I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I am weak and stupid. I cannot take you home to Wales, and I can’t get you to Dore. I have been too foolish. I have to find somewhere else where you will be safe.’

The choices were too confusing. That night he dined on alexanders with some beans he’d brought from Exeter, and chewed on some rough, dried meat that tasted rank but was better on his empty belly than his watery pottage. He curled about the box, desperate, and passed the night in fitful sleep.

But as morning rose he was filled with a firm resolution. He would take the bones to another land where they would be safe. The danger to the bones lay in the English threat. He would take them to another Celtic land – to Cornwall. There must be somewhere there where he could place them and ensure that they were safe. He knew little of Cornwall, but there was a castle at Tintagel, he knew.

He would take the bones to Tintagel. There must be somewhere safe for them there. He had heard of a place just along the coast – Trevenna? There was a small church there dedicated to St Materiana, so he had heard. He would try there. Surely there would be a safe place to hide the bones in a small parish church like that, he thought.