Sword of Shame

ACT ONE

Exeter, April 1195

There was a thunderous crash as the roof fell in and a fountain of sparks erupted into the night sky. The air became filled with specks of black ash and fragments of burning straw floated from the flaming thatch of the cottage. With a crackling roar, Gwyn’s home of twelve years was destroyed in as many minutes.

The big Cornishman stood impotently in the road outside, watching the destruction in company with his neighbours, who although sympathetic to his loss, were more concerned over the threat to their own roofs by the flying sparks. They had carried leather buckets of turbid water from the well, but there was nothing they could do to save the little building, made of wood-framed wattle plastered with cob-a mixture of clay, straw and dung.

The villagers of St Sidwell, a hamlet just outside Exeter’s city walls, had helped Gwyn of Polruan to save what he could of the family’s possessions, few that they were, but most of what was in the single-room had gone up in flames. In the plot behind, the hut that his wife Agnes used for her cooking was emptied before it also fell prey to the flying embers-and their three goats, the fowls and a pair of pigs were also taken to safety in a nearby croft.

‘How did it start, Gwyn?’ asked the man from next door, a mournful fellow who always stank, as he worked in the tannery.

‘That bloody roof again! A chunk of withies and straw as big as my head fell down into the firepit. By the time the smoke woke me up, it was too late!’

The thatch had been laid on woven hazel withies supported by the rafters, always a hazard in dwellings where the fire was in the centre of the floor beneath.

‘Thank God that Agnes and the boys weren’t here,’ said the tanner, relishing the drama that was enlivening the humdrum life of the village.

‘Nothing but damned trouble, this week,’ grunted Gwyn. ‘Both lads are sickening for something, so she took them down to stay with her sister in Milk Lane. She’s good with herbs and potions and suchlike.’

As they spoke, the front wall fell in with a crash and fresh streamers of fire spewed up into the night sky.

‘What’s our landlord going to say about losing his house?’ asked another neighbour with ill-concealed satisfaction. He rented his own dwelling from the same man, the owner of several fulling-mills on the river, which processed raw wool for the spinners and weavers of the city.

‘Sod him, the tight-fisted bastard!’ growled Gwyn. ‘If he won’t mend a rotten roof, he has to put up with the consequences.’

The tanner nudged him. ‘Talk of the devil! Here he is.’

The fire made the midnight scene as bright as day and in its glare, they saw a dark-haired man hurrying towards them, his whole demeanour suggesting pent-up anger.

‘What have you done to my house, you Cornish savage?’ he yelled as he came close. ‘This is all your fault!’

Though Gwyn, like many large men, was normally of a placid nature, this unjust accusation coming so soon after the loss of his home, made him lose his temper.

‘Don’t give me that, Walter Tyrell!’ he boomed. ‘Your lousy roof collapsed on to my fire. God knows I’ve asked you often enough to get it mended!’

A shouting match soon developed, each man vociferously denying the claims of the other. Surrounded by a circle of neighbours, whose sympathies were totally with Gwyn, the pair squared up to each other, as red-faced as the fire behind them. The two antagonists were as unlike as could be imagined. Gwyn of Polruan was a huge, ginger-haired giant, with long moustaches of the same hue hanging down each side of his chin. Walter Tyrell was of average height, but looked small alongside the coroner’s officer. About forty years old, he was coarsely handsome, with dark wavy hair and a rim of black beard around his face. Where Gwyn wore a shabby leather jerkin over his serge breeches, hastily pulled on before he escaped from the burning house, the fuller had a long tunic of blue linen with expensive embroidery around the neck and an ornate belt of embossed leather.

‘You’ll pay for this, you drunken oaf!’ yelled Tyrell, his anger fuelled by Gwyn’s refusal to defer to what he considered a social superior. ‘No doubt you were too full of ale to bank down your fire before you fell unconscious with drink!’

This was totally unjust, for though Gwyn was as fond of ale as the next man, he had a prodigious capacity and had never been seen to be obviously drunk. In addition, though he often stayed in Rougemont Castle overnight, drinking and playing dice with his soldier friends, this particular evening he had come home before the city gates closed at curfew, to feed his animals and worry about the sickness that was afflicting his two young sons.

‘Pay for it?’ he snarled at his insolent landlord. ‘I’ve been paying for this pox-ridden slum for a dozen years! At four pence a week, I could have built a mansion in that time!’

As the average wage was only two pence a day, this was an appreciable sum, but Tyrell’s unreasonable wrath was now in full flow.

‘You’ll pay me five pounds towards the cost of rebuilding-or I’ll take you to the sheriff’s court for judgment. And he’s a good friend of mine!’

Gwyn’s blue eyes goggled at the thought of such a huge sum.

‘You’re bloody mad, Tyrell! Where would I get five pounds? And as for your friendship with the sheriff, well, he’s a bigger crook than you are!’

Incensed at this slur on both his honesty and that of his high-born friend, the fuller made the mistake of punching the Cornishman in the chest. He might as well have struck the city wall, for all the effect it had.

Gwyn gave a roar of annoyance and with a hand the size of a ham, pushed Walter in the face, so that he staggered back into the circle of villagers, for whom the prospect of a fight outweighed even a house fire in entertainment value.

But now things turned nasty, as sobbing with rage, the swarthy fuller reached to the back of his belt and drew out a wicked-looking dagger. As he brandished this, the crowd fell back, with a communal murmur of disapproval at this unsporting escalation of the quarrel.

‘Put that away, you silly fool!’ growled Gwyn, but Tyrell came forward and lunged at him with the blade. Gwyn stepped back and automatically felt for his sword-but his hand failed to find the familiar hilt hanging on his belt. He had left it in the cottage and even while confronted by an angry man waving a knife, he fleetingly realized that his most treasured possession was by now probably ruined beyond repair.

A dagger attack was no novelty to Gwyn after two decades of fighting across Europe and the Holy Land, but even he was surprised by the ferocity of Tyrell’s assault. Dodging the first wild slash, he tried to grab the man’s wrist, but the fuller made a back-handed swing which caught Gwyn on the forearm. The sharp blade sliced through the leather of his sleeve and drew blood from a long cut below his elbow. It was not serious, but the Cornishman gave a bellow, more from indignation at being wounded by such an amateur, than from pain.

‘When I get a sword, I’ll cut your bloody head off!’ he yelled, to the delight of the circle of onlookers. Deciding that this had gone far enough, Gwyn made a feint with his injured arm and in the split second that Walter’s eyes flicked towards it, he gave him a resounding blow on the side of the head with his other fist. As the fuller staggered with his teeth still rattling, Gwyn grabbed his knife arm and twisted the blade from his fingers, then pushed him violently so that he staggered and fell flat on his back on the dusty road.

‘Clear off, Tyrell! You can have your bloody house back again, what’s left of it. I’ll rent one further down the street that’s got a decent roof!’

The red-headed giant threw the knife down alongside Walter, who clambered to his feet, still gibbering with rage, uttering threats and promises of dire retribution.

‘The sheriff will hear of this first thing in the morning, damn you!’ he snarled, as he tried to dust down his soiled tunic. ‘You threatened to kill me! I’ll attain you for assault at the next Shire Court!’

Gwyn, his temper already cooled, grinned at the fuming Walter. ‘Will you choose trial by combat, then?’ he said mockingly. ‘I’ll gladly challenge you with dagger or sword!’

There were jeers from the circle of spectators and his neighbour joined in the row.

‘You should sue him, Gwyn! He struck you first-and he’s wounded you!’

Landlords being about as popular as tax-collectors, the men of St Sidwell began to scowl and look threateningly at Tyrell, who took the hint and still muttering, loped off towards the East Gate, which though it was well after curfew, had been opened by the porters to let him through because of the nearby fire.

With that particular drama over, the men turned their attention back to the burning cottage, but already the collapse of the walls had partly blanketed the fallen thatch and instead of a roaring inferno, the fire was settling into a steady bonfire.

‘There’s nothing you can do until morning, Gwyn,’ said the tanner.

‘Best come home and bed down with us for the rest of the night. My wife can bind up that arm of yours.’

As he moved away reluctantly, Gwyn took a last look at the remains of his home.

‘As soon as it cools, I’ll see if I can find my old sword,’ he growled. ‘But I doubt it’ll be much use after being in there!’

‘Twenty years I’ve had this-and now look at it!’

The huge man looked mournfully at the weapon that lay across his knees, as he sat on a stool in the guard-room of Exeter’s Rougemont Castle.

‘I won it in a game of dice in Wexford,’ he continued nostalgically. ‘It’s been with me in campaigns from Ireland to Palestine and saved my life a dozen times!’

A thin, leathery old soldier, the sergeant of the garrison’s men-at-arms, looked down critically at the sword, as he passed behind the coroner’s officer to refill his ale-pot from a jug on a shelf. The leather scabbard had burnt away, as had the wooden hilt and the remaining metal was bent and discoloured. ‘It’s come to the end of the road now, Gwyn,’ said Gabriel.

‘Why did it get so bent, just being in a fire?’ asked the other occupant of the chamber, which was set at the side of the entrance arch of the gatehouse. He was a fresh-faced young soldier, who had never yet seen any weapon lifted in combat.

‘The ridge timber of the roof fell across it when it collapsed,’ Gwyn explained glumly. ‘But even without that, the heat will have ruined the temper of the steel.’

‘So what are you going to do about it?’ asked Gabriel. ‘You can’t be a law officer without a sword.’

Gwyn dropped the useless weapon to the floor with a clang. ‘I can’t afford to buy a new one, my wife’s expecting another babe. There’ll be clothes for that-and we’ll need to replace things that were lost in the fire.’

‘You’ll just have to win another game of dice, lad,’ suggested Gabriel. ‘Or find a war somewhere, to collect a bit of loot.’

The already gloomy chamber darkened as someone blocked the morning light coming through the low doorway and a deep voice joined in their conversation.

‘Your purse empty again, Gwyn? Is it ale or gaming this time?’

The young soldier jumped to his feet and saluted, as Gwyn hauled himself up from his stool to greet the newcomer.

‘Morning, Crowner! Just having a grumble about my ruined sword.’ He picked up the offending weapon and showed it to his master, who examined it with professional interest. While Gwyn related the unhappy events of the previous night, the young soldier looked at Sir John de Wolfe with some awe. He was a legendary figure in the barracks-a knight, a former Crusader and now the king’s coroner for the county of Devon. Almost as tall as the burly Gwyn, he was lean with a slight stoop, his long face and beaked nose giving him a hawkish appearance. The black hair curling to his collar and the dark stubble on his cheeks, as well as his liking for sombre clothing, explained why he had been known as ‘Black John’ by the troops of a dozen wars over the years.

‘This old piece of iron has seen some action, Gwyn!’ he said with feeling. ‘It’s saved my life a few times, that’s for sure.’

‘As yours did for me, Crowner,’ replied the Cornishman, his ruddy face breaking into a grin, the bright blue eyes twinkling. Then he became serious again, as he took back the ruined sword. ‘How am I going to watch your back now? I suppose I’ll have to rely on that old ball-mace.’

De Wolfe did not reply, but jerked his head towards a doorway on the inner side of the guard-room, where a narrow stone staircase spiralled up in the thickness of the wall. This gatehouse had been the first thing that the Conqueror had built in Devon, after he had ruthlessly squashed the Saxon rebellion less than two years after the battle at Hastings. At the top of the tall, narrow building, a bleak chamber had been allotted to the coroner-deliberately chosen by the sheriff, John’s brother-in-law, as the most inhospitable room in the castle.

The two men climbed laboriously up the steep treads to the second floor and pushed through a crude curtain of sacking which attempted to reduce the draughts. Two narrow window openings allowed the wind to whistle in from above the streets far below, as Rougemont was built at the top corner of the sloping city, in the northern angle of the old Roman walls.

As they entered, a skinny young man, dressed in a threadbare black cassock, got to his feet from a stool at the table and made a jerky bow to his master. He had a narrow, peaky face, with a receding chin and a long thin nose which always seemed to have a dewdrop on the end. Before him on the table were rolls of parchment, a pot of ink and some quill pens.

‘God be with you, sir,’ he squeaked, crossing himself quickly in an almost automatic gesture. ‘I was just copying yesterday’s inquests for the next visitation of the Justices.’

John de Wolfe grunted, his favourite form of reply, and went to sit on the only other item of furniture, a bench on the opposite side of the trestle table. Gwyn parked his vast backside on a window-ledge, his usual resting place, where he stared again at his useless sword with morose concentration, until his master spoke to him.

‘How long have you been my squire and companion, Gwyn?’ he snapped.

The Cornishman frowned in concentration as he tried to work it out. He tugged at the ends of his ginger moustache that hung down almost to the collar of his scuffed leather jerkin, which had a pointed hood hanging down the back.

‘In ’seventy-four, it was, Crowner!’ he decided eventually. ‘The year we first went to Ireland to fight for Richard Strongbow.’

‘Twenty-one years, eh?’ mused de Wolfe, leaning his elbows on the table. ‘I think that deserves some mark of recognition.’

‘What d’you mean?’ grunted Gwyn, rather suspiciously.

‘It means I’ll buy you a new sword, you hairy oaf! Meet me at the armourer’s yard in Curre Street, straight after dinner.’

At noon, the coroner went home to his house in Martin’s Lane, a narrow alley that joined High Street to the cathedral Close. He sat in his gloomy hall, his wife at the other end of the long table, while their cook-maid Mary served them. Boiled salt-fish and a grilled fowl appeared, with beans, onions and cabbage. These were speared or shovelled with a small eating-knife and a horn spoon from pewter bowls on to trenchers, slabs of yesterday’s coarse bread which acted as plates.

Matilda de Wolfe, a stocky, pugnacious woman of forty-four, was in a bad mood and uttered not a single word during the whole meal. Mary winked at John as she passed behind her mistress with the wine-jug and grimaced to indicate that Matilda was in a touchy state of mind. He took the hint and held his tongue, knowing from bitter experience that anything he said would be turned against him, even if it was only an observation about the good spring weather.

As soon as the dessert of honeyed, boiled rice and dried apricots from southern France was finished, he muttered some excuse about attending a suspicious death and made his way out of the hall into the vestibule. This was a small area behind the street door, where cloaks and boots were kept. As he sat on a bench to take off his house shoes, Mary came around the corner of the covered passage that led to her kitchen hut, which shared the backyard with a wash-house, a privy and a pig-sty.

‘What’s her problem today?’ he asked quietly, with a jerk of his head towards the hall door.

Mary, a handsome dark girl in her twenties, rolled her eyes. ‘That maid of hers, Lucille, she trod on the hem of the mistress’s best gown and ripped open a seam, just as she was going to St Olave’s to pray! I’ve never heard such language from a lady!’

De Wolfe grinned and gave Mary a quick kiss as he opened the front door. They had been sporadic lovers in the past, but Matilda’s suspicions had become too acute for it to continue.

‘I’m off to buy Gwyn a new sword,’ he explained. ‘But don’t let her know, she can’t stand the sight of him.’

Curre Street was only a short distance away, a lane on the opposite side of High Street that ran towards the north wall of the city. It had a mixture of houses and shops, the buildings being mostly of wood, though some were now being replaced by stone. Exeter was thriving on its trade in wool, cloth and tin, which were exported not only over all England, but as far away as Flanders and the Rhine. Halfway along Curre Street, there was a substantial timber house with a roof of stone tiles, which had a yard at the side, from which came the sound of hammer on anvil.

Gwyn was there already, with their clerk Thomas de Peyne also in attendance. Though an unfrocked priest, the little man had an insatiable curiosity for all sorts of things and wanted to see where swords were bought and sold.

‘Are you sure you want to do this, Crowner?’ Gwyn asked uneasily. ‘A good sword is expensive these days.’ A gruff, independent character, the Cornishman did not want to be obligated to his master.

De Wolfe clapped his officer on his shoulder, a sensation similar to slapping a stone wall. ‘How are you going to save my life next time, without a good blade?’ he replied with rare jocularity, for the coroner was not renowned for his sense of humour.

They passed through a gate into the yard and skirting the forge where two men were sweating over a furnace and anvil, went to a hut where the owner displayed his wares. Roger Trudogge, himself an old soldier, sat at a bench, carefully sewing an ornate leather sheath for a dagger, but put it aside as soon as he saw Sir John. They had known each other for years and soon they were picking over his stock, laid out on trestles at the sides of the hut. Thomas followed them around, his eyes wide at the sight of all these instruments of injury and death-chain-mail hauberks, shields, lances, daggers, maces, axes and swords.

It was soon obvious which weapon had caught Gwyn’s critical eye. He kept returning to a sword with a handsome scabbard, that lay at the end of the display. Pulling the blade out, he hefted it to test the weight and balance, looked closely at the metal work of the hilt and pommel, then put it back. De Wolfe watched him with half-concealed amusement, as the big red-head made a show of looking at other swords, before drifting back yet again to his favourite. This time he drew it out and made some slashing motions in the air, both single-handed and with both of his great fists. Then with a sigh, he put it back into its sheath and laid it back on the table.

‘That looks like the one you favour,’ observed the coroner. ‘It’s even got hounds’ heads on the hilt.’ His officer had a marked affection for dogs, with whom he seemed to possess a strange empathy.

‘It’s a beautiful piece of work, right enough,’ Gwyn answered longingly. ‘And no doubt the most expensive of the lot.’

Trudogge, a burly man with a severe hare-lip, shook his head. ‘Strange to say, it’s not! One of the best blades I’ve ever had in my shop, but people are not keen on its history, so I’m selling it for less than it’s worth.’

‘What’s wrong with it, then?’ demanded Gwyn, suspiciously.

‘Nothing wrong with the sword! It’s who it belonged to, that puts folk off.’

The armourer explained that he had recently bought the weapon from the eldest son of the late Sir Henry de la Pomeroy, who wanted to get rid of everything that reminded him of his father. The coroner and his assistants immediately realized what the problem was, as they had been partly responsible for bringing it about.

‘That was that bastard from Berry Pomeroy Castle,’ exclaimed Gwyn. ‘The traitor who turned against our king as soon as his back was turned!’ When Richard the Lionheart had been captured by Leopold of Austria on his way home from the third Crusade, his younger brother Prince John had tried to seize the throne while Richard had been imprisoned in Germany for well over a year. Many of the barons and senior clerics had sided with John, including the Bishop of Exeter and Henry de la Pomeroy. However, as soon as the dramatic message ‘The devil is loose’ had reached England just before Richard was released, many of the rebels panicked, suddenly regretting their dalliance with treason.

Thomas de Peyne, a most literate and knowledgeable fellow, knew all the details. ‘Our king sent a herald down to Berry Pomeroy as soon as he came home, to tell Sir Henry that his guilt was known,’ he recalled. ‘But Pomeroy stabbed the messenger to death, then ran off to St Michael’s Mount, where the castellan had already dropped dead of fright when he heard that the Lionheart was home!’

‘I didn’t know that bit of the story,’ said Roger. ‘What happened to him?’

‘I know this, for Cornwall is my land!’ broke in Gwyn, still grasping the sword. ‘He made his surgeon open the veins in his wrist, so that he bled to death, to avoid the vengeance of the king!’

John de Wolfe nodded his agreement. ‘Let’s hope the son has more sense-and loyalty!’ he grunted. ‘Walter, do we know where Pomeroy got this weapon?’

The armourer took the sword from Gwyn, who seemed reluctant to let it go. He drew the blade from the scabbard again and held it so that they could see its quality. ‘It’s far older than his generation. His son said it was handed down through the family and there was a tradition that it was used at Hastings when William the Bastard defeated Harold Godwinson.’

‘There’s an inscription on the blade,’ observed Thomas. He was the only one of the four who could read.

‘What’s it say?’ demanded de Wolfe.

Thomas squinted at the Latin words engraved down the length of the weapon and gave a rough translation in English. ‘It says that he who lives with falsehood, kills his own soul-and if he lies, he loses his honour.’

Gwyn shrugged. ‘Seems common sense to me,’ he growled.

After the coroner had taken the armourer aside for some haggling, they left Curre Street with Gwyn the proud possessor of a knight’s sword. His thanks to his master were brief, but heartfelt. John de Wolfe knew that after more than twenty years’ friendship, any effusive gratitude would have been misplaced.

When they returned to Rougemont, the Cornishman sought out Sergeant Gabriel and together they had an hour’s sword-play in the castle’s inner ward, so that he could get used to the feel of the hilt and the balance of the blade.

In the early evening, Gwyn made his way down to Milk Lane. Though almost in the centre of the city, its name was appropriate, as each of the dwellings had cows and goats on their plots, supplying milk to most of the townsfolk. His wife’s elder sister was Helen, a buxom widow who made a living from her five cows and four nanny-goats. Her two sons tended the animals, carrying in hay and grass for fodder, and hawked milk and cheese around the streets, while Helen did the milking and made the cheese in the dairy shed behind the cottage.

This evening, Gwyn ambled to their temporary home, eager to tell his wife of the coroner’s generosity, but Helen met him at the door with a worried expression.

‘Agnes is unwell, Gwyn. All this trouble with the fire and the boys has done her no good at all. The wise woman from Rock Street is with her now, but I’m afraid it looks as if she’s going to miscarry again.’

Next day was Tuesday, a hanging day. An unusually subdued Gwyn went with the coroner and his clerk to the gallows outside the city, along Magdalen Street. The coroner was required to record the event and to confiscate for the King’s Treasury any property that the felon left behind.

Today was a lean harvest, as two of the four being executed were captured outlaws, with not a penny between them. Another was an old woman who had poisoned her neighbour by mistake, intending only to kill her house-cow out of spite. She had no property other than a few sticks of furniture, hardly worth the trouble of selling for the Crown. The last was a boy of fourteen, convicted of stealing a goblet worth twenty pence from a shop in North Street.

Once the ox-cart had rumbled from under the crossbeam, leaving the victims dangling and kicking-and when the screams and sobs of the relatives had faded after they had ceased pulling down on the legs to hasten death, the coroner’s team walked back towards the city. Gwyn had told his master earlier about his sick children and his ailing wife.

‘I’m sorry to hear of your troubles, Gwyn.’ The deep voice of the coroner was sincere, though he rarely ventured into personal matters.

Thomas nodded in agreement, always a sympathetic soul. ‘You have had more than your share of worries this past day or so,’ he squeaked. ‘May Christ and the Virgin spare you any more problems!’ He crossed himself jerkily in his almost obsessional manner.

‘Troubles always come in threes,’ he grunted. ‘Let’s hope this is the end of them.’

‘What’s wrong with the lads?’ asked Thomas, solicitously.

‘Brother Saulf, the infirmarian from St John’s Priory said they have the jaundice,’ grunted Gwyn. ‘I noticed as soon as I got up today, that their faces and eyes seemed yellow. He said there’s nothing to be done, it seems that there are other cases in St Sidwell’s. The monk suspects it’s because the midden heap got washed into the well, when we had that flood a few weeks back.’

‘I’ll pray for them, but I expect they’ll soon recover,’ said Thomas reassuringly. ‘And may the Holy Spirit protect your good wife, too.’

‘She’s miscarried twice before-and we’ve lost three babes before they were a month old,’ said Gwyn sadly. ‘Let’s hope the two little lads will survive this.’ Though the frailty of young life was accepted philosophically as God’s will, John felt deeply for his henchman, as he knew how much he loved his family. To cover up the risk of showing any emotion, de Wolfe cleared his throat and marched on more briskly.

‘Must get on! The noon bell has rung, my dinner will be on the table.’

After he had turned off into Martin’s Lane, Gwyn and the clerk continued up to the castle. Here Thomas went to pray for his friend in the little garrison chapel of St Mary, while Gwyn continued to the keep, a squat tower on the far side of the inner ward. He intended eating in the hall with his soldier friends, but on climbing the wooden stairs to the entrance, he was confronted with a familiar but unwelcome figure.

‘There you are, you reckless savage!’ snapped Walter Tyrell, almost hopping with angry impatience. ‘Come with me, the sheriff is waiting.’

He grabbed Gwyn’s arm, trying to pull him towards a door at the side of the large hall, noisy and bustling with the everyday business of Devon’s administration. The coroner’s officer stood like a rock, becoming irritated by his former landlord’s persistence. ‘What the hell do you want, Tyrell?’ he growled.

Today the fuller wore a long yellow tunic under a dark blue mantle-which matched the colour of a large bruise on his left temple, where Gwyn had hit him the previous night.

‘I’m indicting you for both the loss of the house I leased you and for assault!’ he snapped. ‘The sheriff is going to attach you and demand sureties for your appearance at the next County Court!’

‘Don’t be so bloody silly, man!’ boomed the Cornishman, angrily shaking off Tyrell’s arm.

‘I’ve got witnesses, some of that rabble that was in St Sidwell’s last night.’

‘The same witnesses that will prove I asked you many times to fix the roof-and will say that you drew a knife on me!’

‘They’ll change their tune for the offer of a handful of silver pence!’ jeered Walter.

Gwyn was just about to offer to give the man a matching bruise on the other side of his head, when the door of the sheriff’s chamber jerked open. The man-at-arms on guard thumped the butt of his pike on the floor in salute as a slight figure stalked out, even more dandified in his appearance than his friend the fuller. Sir Richard de Revelle wore his favourite green, the tunic edged in gold tracery around the hem and neck. A light surcoat of crimson silk carried his family device of a blackbird on a green ground, embroidered on his shoulder. His light brown hair was brushed back from his narrow face, made even more saturnine by the pointed beard below his thin-lipped mouth.

Advancing on the pair near the main door, he brandished a piece of parchment and thrust it at Tyrell. ‘Here, Walter, this is what you requested!’

Scowling at the coroner’s officer, whom he knew and despised as a loyal servant of his brother-in-law, he added ‘My clerk has prepared the writ you desired, so I’ll see this fellow in front of me in the next Shire Court.’

With that he turned and marched away before Gwyn could get out a word of protest. The fuller leered at him. ‘I’ve heard you’re fond of games of chance-are you willing to wager what the verdict will be before the sheriff next week?’

Though Exeter now had over four thousand souls living within its walls, the portreeves and burgesses who ran the city council still employed only two constables to keep the peace. One was Osric, a tall skinny Saxon, the other an older, fatter man called Theobald. Their headquarters was a tiny hut behind the Guildhall in High Street, left behind by the masons who had recently rebuilt the hall in stone.

The two men, carrying the heavy staves which were their only means of keeping order in the city, left together on patrol an hour before midnight and headed down Waterbeer Street. This was a lane parallel to the main street, which held a mixture of dwelling-houses, shops, taverns, two apothecaries and several brothels. One of their prime duties was to enforce the curfew, keeping an eye out for uncovered fires which might pose a threat to the still largely timber-built city, though dealing with unruly drunks staggering out of ale-houses was their other main concern.

Tonight, neither of these tasks occupied them as they walked down Waterbeer Street. Theobald discovered a corpse by the simple process of tripping over it in the gloom, as its feet were protruding from a narrow alley alongside a leather-worker’s shop. Osric held up his horn lantern, which contained a single candle, to shed its feeble light on the body and saw blood oozing from a terrible wound in the neck.

‘Someone’s down the alley!’ bleated Theobald in his squeaky voice and with surprising agility for one with such a prominent ale-belly, started off in pursuit of the rapid footsteps that they had both heard.

The Saxon knelt by the victim, but having seen many corpses during his time as a constable, he knew straight away that he was beyond help. The blood was no longer pumping, but merely oozing from the jagged tear that extended from below the left ear to just above the breastbone, indicating that his heart had already stopped. Osric opened the little door of yellow cow-horn on his lantern to get a better light and held it up above the face of the dead man.

‘God’s whiskers, it’s Walter Tyrell!’ he muttered to himself. The constables knew virtually every prominent citizen by sight, especially burgesses like the fuller. As he rose to his feet, Theobald came trotting back, puffing after his unaccustomed exertion.

‘Lost him in those back alleys!’ he gasped. ‘Not a sign of anyone in that rabbit-warren.’

Osric, who was senior both by length of service and superior brain-power, started to give orders. ‘You must raise the hue and cry at once. Knock up the four nearest households-in fact, make it six! Get the men from each to search all the lanes and streets around, seeking anyone abroad at this hour, especially anyone with blood on their garments or shoes. Then go around each of the gates and make sure they let no one out tonight.’

The corpulent officer looked slightly rebellious at this, especially after his recent gallop down the alley and back. ‘So what are you going to do?’

‘The coroner will want to deal with this from the start, so I’m away to rouse Sir John from his bed.’

As he hurried away, he only hoped that de Wolfe was in his own bed and not that of his mistress, down at the Bush Inn.

‘A bloody great slash, Gwyn!’ observed the coroner, with professional detachment. ‘Right down to the bones of his neck.’

He rose from a crouch and stared down at the cadaver, from which a wide pool of blood had now seeped into the packed earth of the alley. ‘It could be from a large knife, a sickle, a hedging hook or a meat cleaver.’

‘Or a sword, Crowner?’

Something in Gwyn’s voice made John stare at him from under his beetling black brows. ‘Yes, it could well be a sword. Why do you ask?’

His officer grunted mirthlessly. ‘Because only last night, I offered to take off his head with my sword!’

He gave his master a detailed account of his altercation with Tyrell and the fact that only today, the fuller had got the sheriff to issue a writ for assault.

‘But that’s nothing, all you did was punch his head in self-defence against him drawing a blade on you! You’ve witnesses to prove it.’

‘And he boasted that he had already bribed others to say differently!’ Gwyn pointed to the body on the ground, visible in the flickering light of pitch brands held by a couple of residents of Waterbeer Street. They were part of a small crowd who had been roused from their beds by the constables and were now gawking at the drama, after unsuccessfully racing around the streets looking for the killer.

‘Those were just idle words of yours, spoken in the heat of the moment!’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘You can easily prove you had nothing to do with this.’

‘How can I do that?’ growled Gwyn. ‘I was not at home with my wife, because there is no room at her sister’s. I was walking back from Milk Street to Rougemont when this must have happened, as I’m bedding down in the soldier’s quarters there.’

The coroner gestured impatiently. ‘Nothing will come of this, Gwyn, it’s all in your imagination. Who on earth is going to accuse my officer of murder, eh?’

As the words left his mouth, he realized that one person would be delighted to do so. Gwyn, watching his face, knew that the thought had entered John’s mind.

‘Exactly, Crowner! And with the endless bad luck I’ve been having these past days, the sheriff’s very likely to try it on. Especially since this man Tyrell is one of his cronies and has already brought the assault to his notice.’

De Wolfe pondered for moment, the scowl deepening on his bony face. ‘Look, just to be on the safe side, you had better not become involved as my officer in this case. Though I’m sure no one will accuse you, it is wiser for you to keep out of it, to avoid any accusations of partiality.’

‘But how can you hold an inquest without my help?’ objected Gwyn.

‘I can get Thomas to do what’s necessary, just this once. If anyone notices, we can say that your family troubles are the reason. In fact, I think you should be with them at this difficult time.’

Grudgingly, the Cornishman agreed and stood aside as the constables arranged for the corpse to be taken away. Though a disused cart-shed in the castle was the usual depository for casual deaths, it was considered too degrading for a prominent merchant like Walter Tyrell. Instead, a mortuary shed in the churchyard of nearby St Pancras was thought more appropriate and soon the mortal remains of the fuller were carried away by four locals, using a detached door as a bier.

The hue and cry having failed to achieve anything, there was nothing for the coroner to do until morning, so he made his way back home, after trying to reassure his officer that all would be well. Gwyn was unconvinced, as he trudged back up the hill to Rougemont. He felt his new sword slapping against his leg as he walked and put a hand on the beautifully-crafted hilt to steady it.

‘You’ve not brought me much luck so far,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s hope you do better from now on!’

John de Wolfe arrived at the castle gatehouse an hour after dawn next morning, to be greeted by Sergeant Gabriel with a message from the sheriff, demanding his attendance upon him forthwith. The coroner delayed for another hour, to show his independence from Richard de Revelle and spent it up in his barren chamber with Thomas, giving him instructions about the inquest on the fuller. Eventually he loped across the inner ward to the keep and with a perfunctory nod to the man-at-arms outside, marched into the sheriff’s room without knocking. His brother-in-law was seated behind his parchment-strewn table and looked up in annoyance at John’s lack of deference.

‘You took your time, I sent for you long ago!’ he snapped.

‘I’m the king’s coroner, not the sheriff’s!’ retorted de Wolfe. ‘I’m not at your beck and call. I have other things to do, like arranging the inquest on this fuller.’ The sheriff laid down a quill pen and regarded John with a smug expression, which held a hint of triumph. ‘Indeed, your petty inquest! I fear that very soon, that matter will be presented to a far more important court.’

John glowered suspiciously at his brother-in-law. ‘What do you mean by that?’

Richard stood up, carefully smoothing the creases from his cream linen tunic. ‘I think I shall attend this inquest of yours, John,’ he said smoothly. ‘Where and when is it to be held?’

Guessing what was in de Revelle’s mind, John answered grudgingly. ‘An hour before noon, in the churchyard of St Pancras.’

The sheriff’s neat head nodded curtly. ‘I shall be there. Walter Tyrell was a good friend of mine, it is only right that I should pay my respects to his memory.’ With an insolent wave of dismissal, he walked to the inner door of his chamber and vanished into his living quarters, shutting the door behind him with a bang.

Fuming with frustration and not a little worried at the way things were moving, de Wolfe stamped back to the gatehouse and sat drumming his fingers on his table. Thomas sensed his master’s ill-temper and wisely made himself scarce, claiming that he was off to round up a jury for the inquest.

‘You’d better call in at Milk Lane and tell Gwyn that he should keep away,’ ordered the coroner, as the little clerk reached the doorway. ‘There’s no point in exposing him to the spite of the sheriff, for I’ve a good idea of what de Revelle is trying to do.’

This only succeeded in transferring some of John’s anxieties to his clerk and with a worried frown, Thomas pattered off into the busy city streets. An insignificant figure in his threadbare cassock, he pushed his way through the morning crowds of wives doing their shopping, stallholders and hawkers yelling the merits of their goods, porters pushing barrows and others humping great bales of wool. Calling in at the constable’s hut, he confirmed that Osric and his colleague were collecting all those who had been present at the scene in Waterbeer Street and making sure they would be at the inquest. From previous experience, the constables were well aware of the coroner’s wrath if the arrangements failed to run smoothly and Thomas was confident that the jury would be assembled on time.

Then he set off again to reach Carfoix, the central crossing of the main roads from each of the four gates, the street plan not having altered since Roman times. Crossing to South Gate Street, he averted his head from the daily scene in the Shambles, where cattle and sheep were being slaughtered in the street, blood and offal clogging the central gutter. He hurried on and turned through several lanes to reach Milk Street, to find Gwyn in the large plot behind his sister-in-law’s cottage. He was milking a large red cow, who was munching away unconcernedly from a bag of hay hung from her tethering post. A small calf stood nearby, looking indignantly at this large red-headed man who was pouring half her dinner into a wooden bucket.

Thomas delivered his message about the inquest and Gwyn nodded resignedly. ‘I thought this would happen, the bloody sheriff won’t miss a chance like this.’ He pulled his head away from the cow’s flank and called across to Helen, who was sitting on a stool near the back door, plucking a chicken, several more dead fowls lay at her feet.

‘I’ll finish milking the other two beasts, then I’ll kill that goose for you,’ he shouted, before putting his hands back to the udder.

‘How is your wife?’ asked Thomas solicitously.

‘Agnes is just the same, thank you,’ said Gwyn. ‘She’s not lost the babe so far, though she is still bleeding a little. The good-wife who attends her says that she must lie still for some days, if she is to keep it.’

‘And the boys?’

‘They’re no worse, but are listless and can’t stand daylight in their eyes. Neither have any appetite, which proves they are unwell, as they are usually as hungry as dogs!’

Thomas, a kindly man who always sympathized with the misfortunes of others, did his best to cheer his friend from his obvious gloom. ‘I can do little for you but pray, Gwyn, but if there is anything else…’

‘Thank you, Thomas! I seem to be cursed with ill luck these past few days. If what I fear will happen, I’ll need all the prayers you can muster, so keep in practise!’

‘Oyez, oyez, all those who have anything to do before the King’s coroner for the County of Devon, draw near and give your attendance.’

Opening the inquest, Thomas’s reedy voice contrasted markedly with the stentorian bellow that Gwyn used when he officiated, but it was sufficient to quieten the score of men who were shuffling into a half-circle before the small shed that acted as the mortuary. Behind them, a small crowd of onlookers, some of them women, craned their necks to follow the proceedings. They were all in the dusty yard behind St Pancras’s Church in the middle of the city, but most of the jury wished they were elsewhere, as they had other business to attend to.

The door on which Walter Tyrell’s body had been carried was now resting on two small barrels outside the shed and the corpse itself was decorously covered with a grubby blanket. Alongside it stood Sir John de Wolfe, a ferocious scowl on his face, his usual expression for such legal events. He wore a grey tunic down to his calves, clinched by a thick leather belt, which carried a dagger, but no sword. The spring morning was chill, so he had a mottled wolfskin cloak slung over his shoulders.

After piping his opening chant, Thomas went to sit on a smaller barrel, a board across his knees carrying a parchment roll and pen and ink, on which to record the proceedings. The coroner stepped forward, his fists on his hips, to glare around the assembled jury and the spectators crowded behind them.

‘This is to enquire as to where, when and by what means this man came to his death.’ He waved a hand at the still shape under the sheet.

‘He was identified to me earlier this morning by his brother and his widow as Walter Tyrell, a fuller of East Gate Street. Now the First Finder will step forward!’

At this command, the older constable Theobald moved to stand before the coroner and doffed his woollen cap, revealing his bald patch. He related how late last night he and Osric had come across the cadaver at the entrance to the alley. ‘We heard footsteps running away and I gave chase, but was too late to catch anyone,’ he said virtuously.

He went on to say how they had raised the hue and cry, rousing all the householders from the nearby dwellings. Failure to have done this would have resulted in a stiff fine, but the town constables knew their business in this respect. Several other witnesses from Waterbeer Street were called, but all they could add was confirmation of what Theobald and Osric had already described. No one had seen the person running away down the alley nor had they seen Tyrell in the street that night.

De Wolfe then called the widow, who was helped forward by her brother-in-law, a partner in Walter Tyrell’s fulling-mill business. Christina, a handsome blonde much younger than her late husband, wore a grey kirtle as a sign of mourning, but was quite composed and seemed in no need of her escort’s support.

The coroner softened his manner slightly in deference to her bereaved state. ‘What was your husband doing in the streets that late at night?’

The woman shrugged. ‘He often went out, either to do business or to meet some friends in a tavern. The New Inn and the Plough were his favourite places. I think he was going to pay some merchant for a consignment of fleeces, but I’m not sure.’

‘Can you think of any reason why someone might have slain your husband?’ John asked bluntly. ‘Did he have any enemies that you were aware of?’

Christina shook her head. ‘He never spoke much of his business affairs, sir. I can only think that he was set upon by thieves, intent on robbing him.’

John looked across at Osric. ‘Did he have money upon him when he was found?’

‘No, Crowner, he had no purse nor scrip on his belt.’

De Wolfe grunted, as at least one motive-robbery-was a possibility, especially if he had much coin upon him to pay a business debt.

Christina had nothing more to contribute and she stepped back, but John motioned to her brother-in-law to remain and demanded his name.

‘Serlo Tyrell, sir. I was the dead man’s brother-and his partner in the business we run on Exe Island.’

‘Do you know of any enemies he might have had, who might wish him ill?’

Serlo, a tall man with curly black hair, was at least a decade younger than his dead brother. He shuffled his feet uncomfortably. ‘Well, only the quarrel he had with that Cornishman of yours, begging your pardon,’ he muttered.

A murmur ran around the jury and heads turned and nodded. It seemed that the squabble in St Sidwell had become common knowledge in the city.

‘That was a petty matter!’ snapped de Wolfe, irritably. ‘I mean do you know of any reason why someone should want to murder your brother?’

‘Well, that big ginger fellow said he’d cut off Walter’s head!’ retorted Serlo, stubbornly.

As the coroner impatiently waved the man back into the crowd, he caught sight of Richard de Revelle standing at the back of the yard, near the gate. He had a supercilious leer on his face, but rather to John’s surprise, made no effort to intervene in the proceedings. No one else had anything to contribute to the sparse evidence, so John addressed the jury-men, three of whom were lads barely fourteen years old.

‘The law demands that you now inspect the body and come to a verdict. I can tell you that in this case there is still much to be done to discover who might be the perpetrator, so the inquest cannot yet be completed.’

He glared around, as if daring anyone to contradict him. ‘However, the corpse needs to be returned to the family for decent burial as soon as possible.’

He beckoned to Thomas, and reluctantly, the little clerk left his parchments and came across to do Gwyn’s job. Turning his head aside, he pulled back the sheet from the dead body, so that the jury could file past while the coroner gave a running commentary.

‘You will see the deceased has suffered a massive wound in the neck, which has cut through his skin and flesh down to the bones.’

Some of the jury were old soldiers or had worked on farms where blood and mangled flesh was no novelty, but others became deathly pale and several covered up their eyes, looking through slits between their fingers, as if this would reduce the horror. Curiously, the widow Christina stared stoically across the yard at her husband’s corpse, ignoring Serlo’s comforting arm around her shoulders.

‘The skin shows jagged edges, where the blade of some weapon has been dragged across the neck,’ went on de Wolfe remorselessly.

The oldest juror, who John recognized as a former man-at-arms from Rougemont, asked him a question after they had all filed past. ‘What weapon did that, Crowner? It must have been sharp and heavy.’

De Wolfe nodded. ‘A long knife or a cleaver-or maybe a hedging hook.’ He deliberately avoided mentioning a sword, but the old soldier foiled him.

‘Could have been a sword, I reckon. Gone deep into the neck.’

‘It could have been,’ agreed the coroner, but he added evasively, ‘But who carries a sword within the city walls?’

There seemed little else to discuss and after going into a huddle for a moment, the jury reached their verdict. The old soldier spoke up for them.

‘We agree that he was slain, but we can’t tell who did it,’ he announced, rather truculently. De Wolfe nodded and put his informal decision more officially.

‘Then I proclaim that Walter Tyrell was found dead in Waterbeer Street on the eighth day of April in the year of Our Lord 1195 and that he was murdered against the King’s Peace by a person or persons unknown.’

The proceedings over, the jury thankfully melted away and the corpse was transferred to a handcart to take it back to the house. As he watched the widow escorted away by the dead man’s brother, John wondered if Serlo would take over more of Walter’s duties than just running the fulling mill. Still, it was none of his business and he turned to Thomas, who was gathering up his writing materials.

‘That didn’t get us very far,’ he grumbled. ‘I doubt we’ll ever find who killed the fellow.’

‘Try a little nearer home, John!’ came a voice behind him and turning sharply, he saw it was the sheriff, who must have walked around the edge of the yard to come upon him unawares.

‘And just what do you mean by that, Richard?’

De Revelle, richly attired against the cool day in a cloak lined with ermine, gave his brother-in-law a sardonic smile.

‘You know well enough what I mean. That great lump of a Cornishman that you employ is at the bottom of this-and I mean to bring him to justice, for it’s clear that you’ll do nothing.’

‘Gwyn? Don’t talk such nonsense, why should he be involved in this?’

De Revelle leered at John. ‘He struck Walter Tyrell, then threatened to cut his head off-by the looks of that wound, he almost succeeded!’

‘My officer had nothing to do with this! You’re just intent on making trouble.’

The sheriff pirouetted on one of his fashionably long-toed shoes. ‘So why wasn’t he here doing his usual duties? You are keeping him out of sight, perhaps?’

The gibe was too near the truth for comfort, but John retaliated. ‘The man has family troubles-both his wife and his children are sick.’

‘Don’t try to evade the issue, John. I have two witnesses who will swear to hearing his threats. Tyrell had quite rightly appealed this ruffian, both for assault and for restitution of the house that was destroyed through your man’s negligence.’

Impatiently, de Wolfe swung away from his brother-in-law. ‘I’ve got better things to do that listen to your vindictive nonsense, Richard.’ He gestured angrily at his clerk. ‘Come on, Thomas, we’ve work to do back at Rougemont!’ He strode away, but the sheriff’s voice followed him.

‘I’m having him arrested, John-for assault and suspicion of murder!’

That afternoon, a group of worried people gathered in the Bush Inn in Idle Lane, a tavern in the lower part of the city, towards the West Gate. In the large tap-room that formed the whole ground floor, John de Wolfe sat at his favourite table near the fire-pit, with Gwyn and Thomas sitting opposite. Next to him was Nesta, his mistress and landlady of the ale-house. She was a pretty Welsh widow of twenty-eight, with a heart-shaped face and a snub nose, whose auburn-hair peeped out from under her coif, a linen helmet tied under her chin. The coroner and his officer had quart pots of Nesta’s best ale in front of them and Thomas had a small cup of cider. The drink failed to cheer any of them, as they were discussing the sheriff’s threat to arrest Gwyn.

‘He doesn’t give a damn about Walter Tyrell or his death,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘This is just a golden opportunity to get back at me.’

There was a continuing feud between the coroner and sheriff, as John had good reason to suspect Richard of both embezzling from the county taxes and being an active sympathizer with the Prince John faction, still aiming to unseat King Richard from the throne. Though their last rebellion had failed-which was how Gwyn had come by his new sword that had belonged to the traitor Pomeroy-there were still powerful men who supported the younger prince. Richard de Revelle had political ambitions and hoped that by secretly adhering to the rebels, he would eventually reap his reward when John became king.

‘He’s got no proof, only a couple of lying bastards from St Sidwell who would testify to anything for a handful of pennies!’ said the coroner, trying to reassure the Cornishman.

Gwyn was not so sanguine about the situation. ‘Tyrell had already got a writ from the sheriff accusing me of assaulting him and demanding compensation for his burned house,’ he grunted. ‘So when Tyrell turns up dead, de Revelle reckons I had a good reason to get rid of him.’

‘But there’s no proof, Gwyn,’ piped up Thomas, anxious for the welfare of his colleague. Though Gwyn teased him unmercifully, they were the best of friends, the big man always being very protective of the puny ex-priest.

‘When did that awful man ever need proof?’ said Nesta bitterly. She had seen examples in the past of the Sheriff’s vindictiveness.

‘What can we do?’ shrilled Thomas, almost beside himself with anxiety. ‘Would it be best if Gwyn left the city for a while-maybe went down to Cornwall to stay with his relatives?’

De Wolfe shook his head. ‘That would be looked on as running away and an admission of guilt. We have to fight this malicious attempt with the truth!’

‘Find the swine who really killed Tyrell, that’s the only way,’ growled Gwyn.

‘Exactly! And I’ll start this very day,’ promised the coroner. ‘The problem is that you can’t be involved, Gwyn-at least not openly.’

‘I’ll do what I can, sir,’ offered Thomas, desperate to do something to help his big friend. ‘I have many contacts amongst the lower ranks of the clergy. They are a gossipy lot and know much of what goes on in the city, as well as in the cathedral Close.’

Nesta, not to be outdone, also promised to sound out her patrons. The Bush was a popular tavern and her strong ale was very effective in loosening the tongues of the scores of drinkers who passed through every day.

With no more ideas to discuss, de Wolfe sent Gwyn back to Milk Lane to be with his ailing family and then took himself up to Rougemont to see if any of the idle chatter in the hall might throw any light on Walter Tyrell’s private life.

A little over an hour later, Sergeant Gabriel climbed the steps of the keep, a worried expression on his rugged face. He stood inside the main door for a moment, scanning the busy hall. Clerks bustled about with documents, pushing past groups of townsfolk and country bailiffs awaiting audience with officials. A few off-duty soldiers mingled with merchants and a few priests. Some were eating or drinking at tables, others were in animated conversation or raucous laughter. Gabriel soon spotted John de Wolfe leaning against the bare stone wall near the half-circle of the fire-pit, a quart mug of ale in his hand. He was talking earnestly to a couple of burgesses, hoping to get some information about the dead fuller’s business affairs.

The sergeant went across to him and discreetly touched his arm. ‘Sir John, I think you had better come down to the undercroft straight away,’ he said quietly, with a jerk of his head to emphasize the urgency.

The coroner excused himself from his acquaintances and setting his ale-pot down on a nearby table, followed Gabriel across to the entrance.

‘What’s going on? Why the undercroft?’ This was the damp and gloomy basement of the keep, part of it being used for the castle gaol, the rest for storage.

‘The sheriff has had Gwyn arrested! He sent four of my men-at-arms down for him, without even telling me.’ Gabriel was outraged at this, as well as being anxious for Gwyn, his closest drinking and gaming friend.

John clattered down the stairs, furious but not altogether surprised at the sudden turn of events. ‘The bloody man is determined to get at me over this!’ he snarled. ‘But I didn’t think he’d act so quickly.’

They hurried to the entrance of the undercroft, which was partly below ground level. Ducking under a low arch at the bottom of the few steps, they entered a wide, gloomy vault, the roof supported by pillars. On the left was a stone wall with a rusty metal grille, leading into the prison cells. Outside this was a small group of people, dimly lit by the flickering flames of several pitch torches set in rings on the wall. As well as a few uneasy-looking soldiers standing around Gwyn’s towering figure, John also saw the sheriff and his chief clerk. The others included Ralph Morin, the constable of the castle-and Tyrell’s widow Christina and his brother Serlo. In the background hovered two men who had been neighbours of Gwyn’s in St Sidwell-and there was Stigand, the grossly obese gaoler, looking as if he was hoping for a chance to employ his implements of torture.

De Wolfe strode across to the group and, ignoring the sheriff, spoke to Ralph Morin, a good friend who shared his dislike of Richard de Revelle. ‘What in hell’s going on, Ralph?’ he demanded in a loud voice.

Morin, another very large man with a forked beard that enhanced his resemblance to a Viking warrior, began to explain, but was cut across by the strident tones of the sheriff.

‘I’ve had him arrested, John! And unless he can produce some very good evidence of his innocence, he’s going straight to prison to await trial at my court next week!’

John stepped across to stand close in front of his brother-in-law and glared down furiously from his greater height.

‘So, he’s guilty until proved innocent, is he? I thought it was supposed to be the other way around!’

De Revelle stepped back hastily, half-afraid that John was going to strike him. Then he swept an arm around to indicate wife and brother. ‘These good people came to me after your travesty of an inquest today, to demand proper justice! You did nothing to name or even place suspicion on any perpetrator!’

‘If you knew anything about the law, Richard, you’d realize that an inquest is not a trial! That’s down to the king’s justices when they come to the Eyre of Assize.’

‘Nonsense! For centuries, my Shire Court has been sufficient for any type of case. Your new-fangled royal courts are merely a device to extort money!’

De Wolfe gave a mocking laugh. ‘Well, you’re an expert in that subject, Sheriff! Now what are you doing here with my officer? He’s a servant of the king like me, so tread very carefully.’

Serlo Tyrell stepped forward, indignant and truculent. ‘That big Cornishman killed my brother and left this woman widowed. Everything points to him, and we want justice!’

‘I never killed anyone!’ yelled Gwyn, who had so far held his tongue. ‘Even though it means speaking ill of the dead, that Walter falsely accused me of letting his poxy cottage burn down. Then he struck me and when I defended myself, he pulled a knife on me!’

‘And then you threatened to kill him,’ cried the sheriff, in his high pitched voice. ‘These two men from St Sidwell will vouch for that.’ He pointed at the pair, who shuffled their feet uncomfortably.

‘And when and how is he supposed to have done that?’ demanded John. The widow entered the fray, with a harsh demand to know where Gwyn was at the time of the murder. ‘He could have been anywhere about the streets!’ shrilled Christina. ‘Ask him where he was.’

‘I was down with my family in Milk Lane!’ boomed Gwyn, angrily. ‘Then I went back to a game of dice in the castle guardroom until I found a bed in one of the barrack huts.’

‘That’s easy to say, fellow!’ snapped de Revelle. ‘Can you prove it?’

Exasperated, Gwyn turned to de Wolfe. ‘Do I have to answer these damn-fool questions, Crowner? My wife and all my sister’s family will vouch for me being there-and half the bloody garrison saw me at Rougemont!’

Before John could answer him, the sheriff snapped out another question, intent on building a web of suspicion around the Cornishman.

‘And what time did you leave Milk Lane-and when did you arrive at the castle, eh?’

‘How the hell would I know? I don’t carry a graduated church candle about with me! The cathedral is the only place that knows the time in this city. It was all before the Matins bell, that’s for sure.’

John was getting increasingly angry with his brother-in-law. ‘These questions are futile, Richard! As my officer says, who can tell the time except by guesswork? It is either night or day and apart from that, the cathedral bells are the only measure we have. Unless you have some better evidence than this, I suggest we all go home!’

De Revelle smirked and preened himself by throwing one edge of his furred cloak over a shoulder to reveal his fine embroidered tunic.

‘At this so-called inquest you held today, you admitted to the jury that the mortal injuries suffered by the victim could have been caused by a sword. Is that not correct, John?’

‘Of course, it is possible,’ agreed John, suspiciously. ‘But they could equally well have been made by a dagger, a large carving knife or even a reaping hook.’

‘But your servant there habitually carries a sword,’ continued de Revelle suavely. ‘In fact, I understand that he has just acquired a new one.’ He turned and snapped his fingers at the gaoler, who waddled to a nearby table and brought across Gwyn’s weapon, resplendent in its handsome scabbard.

‘This is the one, is it not? It was taken from the dwelling in Milk Street when I had him arrested.’

Gwyn stared blankly at the sword, then at the sheriff, who stood with a smugly satisfied expression on his narrow face. ‘Yes, that’s mine! What of it?’

De Wolfe took a step forward and snatched it from Stigand’s hands. He partly withdrew the blade to satisfy himself by the Latin inscription that it was indeed the weapon that he had purchased for his officer.

‘So what significance has this, Sheriff?’ he demanded. ‘Would you like to see my sword as well?’ he added sarcastically. ‘And those of the hundreds of men in Exeter who carry one?’

‘I have no interest in other men’s swords, John,’ retorted Richard smoothly. ‘Only the one belonging to the man who had the best motive and the opportunity to kill Walter Tyrell.’

He stepped across to de Wolfe and withdrew the blade completely from its sheath. Waving it gently about, he spoke again to the mystified Gwyn. ‘This weapon came into your possession only within the last couple of days-and before that, did it not lay for some time with Roger Trudogge, a well-known armourer of this city?’

Gwyn grudgingly grunted his agreement, still unclear as to where all this was leading.

‘And no doubt, that good armourer would have cleaned and polished the sword, to increase his chances of selling it?’

Again Gwyn could not deny that that was probable and watched with a furrowed brow as Richard de Revelle pulled out a handkerchief of fine white cambric from the sleeve of his tunic. Stigand had obviously been primed beforehand, as he held out a small leather bucket of moderately clean rain-water. The sheriff dipped his kerchief into it, then squeezed the water from it, so that it remained damp.

‘So as that armourer had thoroughly cleaned this blade, anything found upon it must have got there since you took possession?’

De Revelle obviously expected no answer to his question, as he began busily running the folded linen down the full length of the blade, taking particular care to press it along edges of the central rib and into the indentations of the inscriptions. Handing the sword back to Stigand, he opened out the handkerchief and with a flourish, displayed it to the curious onlookers.

With a scream, Christina Tyrell staggered against her brother-in-law, who grabbed her to prevent her falling.

‘My husband’s blood!’ she screeched dramatically, conveniently forgetting that she had gazed unmoved at the far worse sight of his mutilated body during the inquest.

The sheriff triumphantly waved the pink-stained cloth at de Wolfe. ‘Can anyone now doubt that this lethal weapon has been used to slash flesh and draw blood since it was purchased?’ he brayed. ‘I now charge that man, Gwyn of Polruan, with the murder of Walter Tyrell. Take him away and see that he is brought before me at the Shire Court next week!’

There was confusion in the undercroft for several minutes, as Gwyn struggled against the four soldiers who closed in on him. The widow continued to wail and sob, the dead man’s brother began shouting abuse at the suspect and the sheriff hurried away, a satisfied leer on his face.

Only John de Wolfe remained ominously calm, as he picked a small object from the edge of the slot in Gwyn’s scabbard and carefully placed it in the pouch on his belt.

‘It was a damned set-up, that’s what it was!’ snarled John, thumping the table with his fist. He was back in the Bush again that afternoon, with Nesta and Thomas, but instead of the usual Gwyn, Sergeant Gabriel was sitting in his place.

‘So how did that blood get on the blade, master?’ quavered Thomas. ‘As the sheriff said, the sword must have been well-cleaned by that armourer, before he offered it for sale.’

De Wolfe fished in the pouch on his belt and pulled out a small wisp of something, which he carefully laid on the boards of the trestle. He placed the edge of his ale-mug on it, to stop it being blown away.

‘I picked that from the top edge of the scabbard,’ he explained. ‘It was stuck by a little blob of dried blood to the slot where the blade enters.’

Nesta peered at it closely. ‘It’s a tiny feather! From a red chicken, by the looks of it.’ John nodded, a grim expression on his face. ‘Faked evidence! After Gwyn’s sword was snatched from the house in Milk Lane when they arrested him, either de Revelle, or more likely someone acting for him, quickly smeared some blood from a dead fowl on the blade and let it dry.’

Thomas nodded his understanding ‘Of course! Why else would the sheriff even think of rubbing the blade with his handkerchief, unless he already knew that he could discover some blood?’

‘How can he be allowed to get away with it?’ hissed Nesta, livid with anger at this plot against one of her best friends.

De Wolfe shrugged helplessly. ‘He represents the king! In Devon, there’s no one who can dispute his authority.’

‘Can’t you appeal to someone over de Revelle’s head?’ she asked.

‘It would take too long, my love!’ he replied bitterly. ‘It would take a couple of weeks to get a response from the Chief Justiciar in Winchester, even assuming he was there and not in London-or even visiting the king in Normandy.’

The grizzled sergeant nodded. ‘The bloody sheriff will have Gwyn convicted and hanged before then, for that’s what he wants.’

‘Can the bishop do nothing?’ persisted Nesta, her face pale with anxiety. ‘Surely he wouldn’t want an innocent man executed?’

John gave a harsh, cynical laugh. ‘Henry Marshal? He’s almost as bad as de Revelle. A secret supporter of Prince John’s treachery-he wouldn’t lift a finger to help.’

Thomas surreptitiously crossed himself at this defamation of the leader of the Church in Devon and Cornwall, though privately he knew it was true. ‘Is there nothing we can do?’ he wailed. ‘We can’t let Gwyn go to the gallows next week.’

‘He’s being kept in the city gaol in the South Gate,’ muttered Gabriel. ‘The cells in Rougemont are full until the next hanging day.’

The substantial towers that flanked the southern entrance to the city were used to house prisoners remanded by the burgess’s court of the city, as well as for some sent there by the sheriff’s County Court. It was a foul, cramped dungeon and like most gaols, many of the inmates in there died from disease or being killed by other prisoners, before they ever came to trial.

‘The only hope is to find the real killer,’ sobbed Nesta, clinging on to John’s arm.

‘That’s almost impossible, given the short time we have,’ snarled the coroner.

‘So we need more time!’ declared the sergeant. ‘Which means we’ve got to get him out of there…now listen to me!’

Four heads bent together over the table and began muttering in conspiratorial tones.

The following night, several shadowy figures moved around the city, in addition to the usual drunks and furtive patrons of the numerous brothels.

One who was not out and about was the coroner, who as a royal officer himself, needed to stay well clear of any nefarious activity. To establish his innocence in advance, he stayed in his own hall all evening, much to his wife’s surprise, for he usually found an excuse to take his old hound Brutus for a long walk each night, a transparent excuse to go down to the Bush Inn to visit his mistress.

John even raided his wine cupboard and opened a stone jar of his best Loire red, insisting that Matilda sample a few glasses, as they sat by their hearth. This considerate domesticity made his wife somewhat suspicious, but she could hardly complain at his solicitous behaviour, however unusual it might be. Later that evening, when she retired to bed in her solar, John feigned tiredness and insisted on accompanying her, though he drew the line at anything but a rapid descent into sleep.

Meanwhile, out in the darkened city, Thomas de Peyne was slinking around the back of the Guildhall to reach the constable’s hut, at a time when he knew they would be fortifying themselves with bread, cheese and ale before going on their late night rounds. Sympathetic to Gwyn’s plight and like most people, contemptuous of the sheriff’s corruption, they readily agreed to the clerk’s request for them to direct their feet towards the north side of the city for the next hour or so, keeping away from the cathedral area.

The disgraced priest then slipped away towards the Close, the large area around the massive cathedral of St Peter and St Mary. This was mainly a burial ground, flanked by the houses of the canons and various small chapels and churches. It had a series of entrances from other streets, in one of which, Martin’s Lane, the coroner lived. Thomas kept well away from there and lurked under an arch leading to Southgate Street. It was too early for the bell to summon the clergy to Matins, so the Close was quiet, with just a few beggars and drunks fast asleep against the burial mounds.

Soon, footsteps approached and the figure of Sergeant Gabriel appeared, a hooded cloak over the leather jerkin that was part of his military garb.

‘All’s well,’ reported Thomas, in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Osric and Theobald have decided to patrol up near the North Gate tonight.’ He reached into a pocket inside his shabby cassock, the only remnant of his ecclesiastical past, and handed over a heavy purse. ‘The coroner says that this should be sufficient for your purpose.’

Gabriel, with a furtive look up and down the dark alley, slid the purse into his own cloak. ‘Wait here, Thomas! We should be back within a few minutes.’

He vanished into the darkness, leaving the little clerk in a state of acute anxiety, his teeth chattering partly from the chill night, but mainly from fear of being discovered. The few minutes promised by Gabriel seemed to lengthen into hours and the prospect of being arrested and cast into a cell himself began to strengthen in his fevered mind. He was just trying to decide if the penalty for gaol-breaking would be hanging or mutilation, when the sergeant materialized again, with Gwyn close behind.

‘Thank God and all his angels!’ gabbled the clerk, crossing himself convulsively in his relief.

‘No time for gabbing now,’ snapped Gabriel. ‘Let’s get him safely put away.’

They hurried across the Close, passing before the great West Front of the cathedral, dimly seen in the starlight. A muddy path between open grave-pits and older mounds took them diagonally across to the opening into Martin’s Lane, but instead of passing the coroner’s dwelling, Thomas stopped before a heavy door set into the front of a small white-washed church with a plain, narrow tower. Twisting the iron ring, he pushed it open and ushered the others inside.

‘Here you are, Gwyn, a safe haven for the next forty days! Even the sheriff won’t dare to have you dragged out of here, this is God’s sanctuary!’

‘How did he take it, John?’ asked Nesta the next evening, as they lay together on her mattress in the Bush, where a corner of the loft had been partitioned off as a bedroom for the landlady.

De Wolfe’s craggy face split into a rare smile as he recalled the sheriff that morning, almost incandescent with rage at the news of Gwyn’s escape into sanctuary.

‘He was fit to have a seizure, I thought he might have attacked me!’ he chortled. ‘It was his pride that was most injured, when he discovered that his cunning plot had been thwarted.’

‘Did you confront him about the chicken blood?’ she demanded, indignantly.

‘I did indeed! Of course he denied it and said I had no proof that it was chicken blood. I said he had no proof it was human, so it was a stalemate, but he knows that I know the truth.’

‘What about the gaoler at South Gate?’ asked Nesta. ‘He must be in dire trouble over this.’

‘The sheriff was all for locking him into his own cells and throwing away the key!’ grinned de Wolfe. ‘Thankfully Gabriel got Gwyn to punch his face a few times and then tie him up. The man didn’t mind, as he’s three marks the richer for it! We let four others escape from Gwyn’s cell at the same time, just to avoid making it look too obvious. It’s not as if bribing gaolers is uncommon, it happens all the time.’

‘But de Revelle must know that you were behind it?’

‘Of course he does! But he can’t prove it, whereas his own sister can testify that I was never out of her sight all that evening.’

The auburn-haired Welsh woman cuddled up to him under the sheepskin that covered them, but she looked worried. ‘But isn’t this just delaying the outcome?’ she fretted. ‘What happens to Gwyn at the end of the forty days?’

Though she knew something about sanctuary, her lover had just explained it more fully. Gwyn could stay in St Martin’s church for that period, safe from arrest, but unless he confessed his crime to the coroner in a set form of words and agreed to ‘abjure the realm’, he would be locked in and starved to death when the forty days was up. ‘Abjuring the realm’ meant leaving England for ever, on pain of death if he ever returned.

‘We have to clear this matter up long before the time runs out,’ replied John, serious once again. ‘Discover who really slew Walter Tyrell and expose de Revelle’s trickery.’

Nesta suddenly sat up, the candlelight revealing her nakedness until she modestly clutched the coverlet to her bosom. ‘I did hear something today, John,’ she said earnestly. ‘A weaver from Tiverton was in here this afternoon. He’s a regular customer, calls in for a meal and ale every time he comes to Exeter to buy wool. Everyone was gossiping about Tyrell’s murder and I asked if he knew him.’

John pulled her back down and covered her with the fleece, waiting with interest for the rest of her story, his bare arm about her shoulders.

‘We got talking about it and I led him on as well as I could.’

‘You brazen hussy! Am I to be jealous?’ he jested.

‘Be serious, John! He said that it was well-known that Walter’s brother, this Serlo, has for a long time been trying to buy out his brother’s share in the mills, so that he can become sole owner. But Walter refuses and there has been bad feeling between them.’

The coroner considered this, even though it did not prevent him from massaging a shapely breast while he did so.

‘Every bit of information helps,’ he murmured. ‘Though would anyone kill for something like that?’

‘There’s more,’ said Nesta. ‘While we were talking, Henry Ockford, the carter, said that there was gossip about Serlo and his sister-in-law.’

‘That Christina?’ grunted John. ‘I’d not be surprised. She seemed hardly grief-stricken at the sight of her husband’s bloody body, even though she put on a great act when de Revelle showed his stained kerchief. As for Serlo, he couldn’t keep his hands off her at the inquest.’

Nesta rolled towards him and put her arms around his neck. ‘I know someone else who can’t keep his hands off a lady!’

Further discussion about the problem was postponed for some time.

‘It’s the Bush’s best ale-and Nesta made the pasties herself,’ said Thomas anxiously, as he watched Gwyn wolf down the basketful of food that he had brought into the little church. He came faithfully twice a day to keep the big man fed and to offer him some company.

‘Your wife is well and so far there are no signs that she has miscarried,’ he added comfortingly. ‘She says she will visit you as soon as she is able-and bring the lads with her, for hopefully, they should soon be on the mend.’

Gwyn looked up from where he sat on one of the stone benches that ran around the walls. ‘How long am I going to be stuck in here, then?’ he asked, between mouthfuls of mutton pasty. ‘Two days already seems like two months!’

‘The Crowner is doing his best, but he needs to discover the real killer.’

The Cornishman nodded. ‘I know-and I’m grateful to you all! I only wish I could be out of this place to help you.’

He glowered around the bare chapel with its earthern floor and simple altar that carried only a brass cross and two wooden candlesticks.

‘It’s better than the gaol at South Gate, but only just,’ he growled, but then cursed himself for his ingratitude and apologized to the little clerk. ‘Forgive me, Thomas, I’m in low spirits today. Ever since I got that damned sword, everything seems to have gone wrong.’

The former priest nodded his understanding. ‘Perhaps it carries the taint of its former owner, the treacherous Henry. And who knows what shameful deeds it performed before that?’

They went on to talk of the escape, the bribed gaoler pretending to be overpowered by the five men in one cell, when he undid the crude lock to pass in their stale bread and tainted water. ‘I may have hit him a bit harder than I needed, especially as he was a Cornishman like me, but it had to look realistic, for his sake!’ Gwyn said with a grin, as he finished the last of the food and ale.

‘Sir John says he’ll come in to see you as soon as he can,’ said Thomas, putting the remains back into Nesta’s basket. ‘He doesn’t want to make it too obvious, as the sheriff is rightly convinced that the crowner organized the whole affair.’

Gwyn settled back on to the stone ledge, the only seating provided for the elderly and infirm of the congregation. It also had to serve as his bed, softened with a blanket provided by the kind landlady of the Bush.

‘The parish priest here seems quite content to let me stay here,’ he commented. ‘Not like that fat bastard down at St Olave’s, when he had that real murderer sheltering in his church.’

‘He doesn’t have any choice,’ observed Thomas. ‘Sanctuary is a merciful privilege given by God, not the clergy. But we chose St Martin’s for you as Father Edwin is one of the very few Saxon priests in Exeter. He’s a bit of rebel and no lover of the Norman aristocracy, which includes the sheriff!’

‘Good for him!’ muttered Gwyn. ‘But I wish he’d put padding on this ledge-my arse will be covered in blisters after forty nights of this!’

John de Wolfe decided to start his investigation by following up the rather tenuous motives suggested by Nesta’s tavern gossip. If the two Tyrell brothers had any dispute, then the obvious place to begin was the fulling mill.

Next morning he took himself off down to the West Gate and strode out on to the large area of marshy ground along the river that was known as Exe Island. Cut through by ditches and reens, it flooded when there was heavy rain up on distant Exmoor, but was an ideal place for the mills, of which there were at least a dozen. They needed copious quantities of water for washing and processing the raw wool, which was the main foundation of Exeter’s-and indeed, England’s-wealth. The Tyrells had two of the mills side by side, rather ramshackle wooden buildings with short canals bringing water directly in from the river. There was a ragged collection of huts around them, mostly for storage of the fleeces and the finished wool.

De Wolfe enquired for Serlo Tyrell, but was told he was away buying raw material at Buckfast Abbey, the large Cistercian monastery fifteen miles way, which had the largest flocks of sheep in Devon. Instead, he was directed to a shed where he found a harassed clerk poring over a confused mass of parchment rolls. The man looked up in irritation at being disturbed, but when he recognized the King’s Coroner, he jumped up and bowed his head obsequiously.

‘How can I be of assistance, sir?’ he gabbled. ‘This is a terrible business.’

John whimsically assumed he meant the death of his employer, not the state of the fulling industry. ‘I want some information, which may help in discovering who killed your master.’

The man’s eyebrows went up in surprise. ‘I thought this was already known, sir!’ Then he appeared to recollect that the assumed culprit was this knight’s own squire and managed to look embarrassed.

The clerk, who looked about John’s own age of forty, was a pasty-faced, overweight man, with thin, fair hair cropped short at the sides and back. He had rather full, pink lips, which covered uneven and badly discoloured teeth. A nondescript brown tunic had splashes of ink on the front and his fingers showed the same trademark of a scribe.

‘I am Martin Knotte, sir, chief clerk to the Tyrell mills. What can I tell you?’ Without any real justification, the coroner had taken an instant dislike to the man after only half a minute in his company. There was something distasteful about his fawning manner and his moist, mobile mouth. Aware that this snap judgement was quite unfair, John pressed on with his questions.

‘You were clerk to both Walter and Serlo Tyrell?’

‘I had the honour to serve them both, Crowner. There is a second clerk at the other mill, but he is merely a junior who works under my direction.’ He said this with a disdainful air, like a bishop referring to a choir-boy.

‘The two brothers were partners, I understand?’

‘Yes, but Walter had the bigger share, as he was older and inherited from their father when Serlo was little more than a boy.’

De Wolfe decided to get to the nub of the matter without delay. ‘Did they get along harmoniously, or was there any friction between them?

Martin looked slightly affronted. ‘I am a steward, sir, my only concern is the smooth running of the accounting and the other chores of running a busy mill.’

The coroner was in no mood for fencing with clerks. ‘Come now! I am enquiring into a murder. I have no time for the niceties of polite behaviour. Chief clerks always know more of what goes on than anyone else.’ His stern tone and perhaps the slight flattery about the omnipotence of trusted servants, loosened the clerk’s tongue.

‘Well, between you and me, sir, Master Serlo has chafed somewhat at always being the follower behind Walter’s leadership. He has had many notions of improving the working methods and expanding the business, but his brother always over-ruled him.’

‘With what consequences?’ demanded John.

The clerk rather dramatically looked over each shoulder before answering in the empty hut. ‘Serlo has repeatedly offered to buy out Walter’s share, suggesting that the older man could retire-or at least use the time and money to expand his other interests, such as buying and renting out dwelling-houses. I think Serlo badly wanted to rise amongst the city burgesses and even had ambitions to become a portreeve.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Master Walter should have taken the offer, for now it’s too late.’

‘Did their dispute become acrimonious-or even violent?

Martin shrugged dismissively. ‘Some harsh words were spoken, but nothing more.’

John had the impression that he was considerably understating the truth here. He cleared his throat, one of the mannerisms he used to cover awkward moments. ‘And what of Serlo’s relations with his brother’s wife?’

Again Martin’s pale eyebrows climbed up his forehead in surprise. ‘Mistress Tyrell? I don’t know what you can mean.’

John sighed at the tedious fidelity of the clerk. ‘I’m not blind, nor are the citizens of Exeter! Serlo Tyrell, an unmarried man, seems overly fond of his sister-in-law.’

Martin’s eyes again cautiously roved the empty room, before he answered in a quite unnecessary whisper. ‘It is true that he was devoted to Mistress Christina, but I’m sure there was no impropriety between them. Since the death, he has been most supportive and if they eventually tie the bond, then I’d not be surprised-and most happy about it.’

De Wolfe was irritated by the clerk’s pedantic manner, but further questions produced nothing of substance. When he left, he felt that the man’s grudging admissions meant that the city gossips were almost certainly correct. Serlo had coveted his brother’s business and his status, as well as his handsome wife. He now had all three in his grasp, but had it been a sufficient motive to have hacked through Walter’s neck?

Not only did the sheriff continue to harangue de Wolfe about the escape of Gwyn from the gaol, but John’s wife joined in the condemnation.

‘It is glaringly obvious that you connived at it, husband!’ she grated yet again, this time as they sat at dinner. ‘No doubt you used our money to bribe that gaoler.’

De Wolfe waited while he picked a fish-bone from his teeth, as it was a Friday and they had the usual salt haddock instead of meat. ‘I was nowhere near the South Gate that night, Matilda-as you well know,’ he said calmly, knowing that it would irritate her all the more.

‘My brother says you organized the whole shameful affair,’ she snapped, her square face scowling across the table.

‘Just as he organized the far more shameful deception that put my officer there in the first place!’ countered John. ‘So let’s just say that God evened up the score by letting those five men escape, one of whom happened to be Gwyn.’

Matilda angrily thrust back her chair, the legs scraping noisily on the flagstones. ‘How dare you blaspheme, taking the name of God in defence of that Cornish savage!’ she ranted. ‘You’ve already desecrated St Martin’s by housing him there! I’m going to St Olave’s to pray for your soul, for it seems in dire need of salvation.’ With that, she lifted up the hem of her heavy brocade kirtle and stalked out of the hall, yelling for her timid French maid to come and help her dress for her devotions.

John took his time finishing his dinner, then sat at his hearth with a pot of cider, looking into the fire while he fondled the head of his old dog. The flaming logs reminded him of the destruction of Gwyn’s cottage, which had started this sorry chain of events. Though his officer claimed that his recent ill-fortune was due to the acquisition of his new sword, the fire had occurred before that, as had the sickness of his sons.

He churned the matter around in his head, but saw no way of pushing ahead with his suspicions of Serlo Tyrell. He intended confronting him as soon as he returned from Buckfast, though the man was hardly likely to admit his guilt, short of extracting a confession by torture. For a moment, John contemplated Christina as a possible suspect, given her apparent lack of genuine emotion at the sight of her husband’s corpse and the patently false hysteria at the sight of the sheriff’s stained handkerchief. But though he did not subscribe to the common notion that frail women could not inflict such serious wounds-and Mistress Tyrell was by no means frail-he doubted that she would risk a hanging just to exchange one brother for another.

He heard the street door slam behind Matilda as she stormed off to pray for his soul at St Olave’s, the maid Lucille pattering apprehensively behind her. As he rose from his chair, their cook-maid bustled in to clear the debris of the meal and John put an affectionate hand on her bottom as she leaned over the table. She removed it rather reluctantly and turned to him with a reproving smile.

‘That’s enough of that, Sir Crowner! Keep that for the ale-house in Idle Lane!’

Mary knew all about his having a mistress, as did most of Exeter, and John suspected she was a little jealous, even though it had been she who had kept him at arm’s length these past few months.

Facing him with empty ale jars in her hand, she became more serious. ‘This murder that’s got poor Gwyn into such trouble-I was talking to a girl I know when I was at the fish stall this morning. She lives in Waterbeer Street and told me something about this Walter Tyrell.’

John’s attention was gripped at once. Just as Nesta sometimes picked up useful information from her patrons at the tavern, so Mary passed on gossip from the house-servants that formed an effective grapevine across the city. He waited for more, though Mary looked slightly embarrassed.

‘To be frank, she’s a whore who works in one of the stews there-but a pleasant woman, with two babes to support,’ she said defensively. ‘Anyway, she said that the dead man was a regular customer. Not one of hers, but he frequently visited a girl called Bernice. It seems he was always very furtive about going there, muffled in a hooded cloak and using a back alley instead of the street. In fact, the alley where he was found dead, for it’s only a few dozen paces from the brothel.’

Mary had no more details to offer, but as John thoughtfully made his way up towards his chamber in the castle, he wondered if the information might be put to any use. Did it strengthen the case against Serlo or perhaps even Christina? If Walter had to resort to harlots, when he had a young, attractive wife at home, did this point to greater marital disharmony than his chief clerk admitted? Could his wife or his brother-or both of them in concert-have followed him to this house of ill-repute and killed two birds with one stone? Removing an unfaithful husband who stood in the way of their own passion and at the same time, gaining the rest of a flourishing business?

His garret at the top of the gatehouse was empty. Thomas was nowhere to be seen and the window-sill where Gwyn always sat was poignantly bare.

John sat at his table and reluctantly picked up a parchment covered with simple words and phrases in Latin, as he was painfully learning to read and write, being coached by both Thomas and a vicar from the cathedral.

His mind kept wandering from the manuscript and after a while, he was glad to hear footsteps on the stairs as a welcome diversion. It was Thomas de Peyne, breathless and agitated.

‘Crowner, I have heard disturbing news at the cathedral!’ He leaned on the table to gabble at his master. ‘A deacon I know told me that this morning, the sheriff arrived seeking an audience with the bishop, but when he learnt that His Grace was in Coventry, he fell into a temper, then sought out the Precentor instead. They had their heads together for some time, calling in two other canons into the Chapter House.’

When Thomas named them, de Wolfe recognized a pair of the sheriff’s cronies, Prince John sympathizers like Thomas de Boterellis, the Precentor-and indeed, like Bishop Marshal himself.

‘Do you know what it was all about?’ he demanded.

‘This deacon tried to listen at the door, for he is very nosey,’ said Thomas virtuously. ‘But a proctor chased him away so the only words he managed to hear were about “breaking sanctuary”!’

The coroner shot to his feet, tipping over his bench with crash. ‘The bastard! Surely he wouldn’t dare?’ he snarled. ‘Thomas, you are a churchman, surely it is inviolable?’

The clerk, a fount of knowledge on all things religious and ecclesiastical, explained that though the Church jealously protected its right to sanctuary-especially since the murder of Thomas Becket-it accepted that the secular powers sometimes broke it. ‘There is even a scale of penalties for violation of sanctuary,’ he explained. ‘The fines for dragging a man from a cathedral are far greater than from a mere parish church or a chapel.’

De Wolfe had no wish to see this put to the test and grabbed his cloak as he made for the door. ‘Thomas, get down to St Martin’s as fast as your legs will carry you and warn Gwyn! Bar the door if you can and only open it to me.’

He hurried across the inner ward and burst in to de Revelle’s chamber, only to find it empty, apart from a clerk sorting tax rolls.

‘Where is he, Edwin?’ he demanded.

‘An hour ago, he went in a great state of excitement to find the castle constable, Crowner,’ said the clerk. ‘He never came back.’

‘Damn it to hell,’ muttered de Wolfe. ‘Perhaps I’m already too late!’

As he turned to hurry from the room, his eye caught sight of Gwyn’s new sword leaning against the doorpost. On an impulse, he snatched it up and hung it from his own belt, as when inside the city walls, he rarely carried his own weapon. He clattered down the steps, intending to get to St Martin’s as soon as possible, but stopped when he saw Ralph Morin, the burly constable who was in charge of the garrison at Rougemont. Together with Sergeant Gabriel, he was lining up a dozen men-at-arms in the inner ward, but the lethargy in their movements suggested a certain reluctance.

‘What’s going on, Ralph?’ he demanded as he strode up to them.

The constable took his elbow and steered him away from the soldiers. ‘Thank God you’re here, I was coming to look for you. That thrice-damned sheriff has ordered me to drag your officer from the church. I did all I could to resist, but an order is an order. He’s the king’s representative here and I am under his control.’

Unlike most castles, which belonged to barons and lords, Exeter had always been kept entirely under royal administration and the constable was his servant. De Wolfe, though angry and apprehensive, laid a hand on Morin’s broad shoulder. ‘I understand, Ralph. You have to do your duty, however evil it is.’

By now, Gabriel had joined them, livid with fury. In a low voice, vibrant with emotion, he said ‘It’s madness! First I contrive his escape, now I’ve got to go and drag him out again! But the bloody sheriff will have us all hanged if we refuse.’

‘What about the desecration of sanctuary?’ hissed the coroner.

Ralph shook his head. ‘De Revelle said to forget it, he’ll take responsibility and gladly pay any fine. He claimed that the bishop would gloss over any religious problem, so there’ll be no chance of us being excommunicated.’

His voice was bitter and John realized that only the thought of the gallows prevented him from defying his orders.

‘Then just do me one favour, Ralph. Give me time to get down there before you. Understand?’

The constable nodded and pointed to a horse outside a nearby stable. It was already saddled up for a castle messenger to ride off on some errand. ‘We are marching down, so if you take that gelding, you’ll be there at least ten minutes before us. That’s the best I can do, John!’

With a wave of thanks, John swung himself into the saddle and tore off through the gatehouse and down the hill to East Gate Street. To avoid the usual press of people in High Street, he dived into the back alleys opposite and swearing at anyone who got in his way in the narrow lanes, pushed his way through to the side of the little church. Abandoning the horse to graze the sparse grass of the Close, he hammered on the door and yelled for Thomas to open it. He heard a bar being lifted inside and when he virtually fell through the doorway, he found not his clerk, but a tall, fair priest facing him.

‘Father Edwin, the sanctuary of your church is about to be desecrated!’ he shouted.

The Saxon nodded gravely and now John saw that Thomas and Gwyn stood behind him.

‘Your clerk, my brother in God, explained what was happening. It is an outrage, typical of the oppression we have to suffer from these invaders.’

John, who though he had a half-Welsh mother, came from a long line of Norman invaders himself, but this was no time to argue politics.

‘We have to get him out and hide him,’ he snapped. ‘They will be here within minutes, so the only place is my house, just up the lane.’

The parish priest shook his head firmly. ‘You are a good man, Sir John. You cannot compromise your position like that, it could ruin you.’ He beckoned to Gwyn in a way that seemed to defy any argument and led the way to a small door set in the wall to the right of the altar. Opening it with a large key, he turned to John to bar him entering. ‘I suggest that you go straight to your dwelling, Coroner, and play the innocent, for they are bound to seek you out.’

He shepherded Gwyn and Thomas into the tiny sacristy where he kept the Blessed Host and his few service books. He waved John back towards the main door. ‘Your clerk will come to you later and let you know how matters stand.’

With that, he followed them in and shut the door. Then John heard the key being turned on the inside.

‘The man is a saint,’ said Thomas reverentially. ‘When I am a bishop, I will appeal to Rome for Father Edwin’s sanctification!’

It was evening and he was sitting in the Bush with Nesta and de Wolfe recounting to her the exciting events of this stressful day.

‘The sacristy had an outer door leading into a small yard,’ he explained.

‘Here there was a bier used for taking cadavers to the cathedral for burial, a kind of long chest on small wheels, with handles on each end. The lid opened on hinges and the priest made Gwyn get inside.’

In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Nesta could not suppress a giggle. ‘I’ll wager he didn’t like that one bit!’

‘The poor fellow had to almost double up to fit himself in, cursing all the time under his breath,’ agreed Thomas.

He explained that the Saxon priest had given him an old Benedictine habit to wear, then told him to push the bier from behind, while he himself walked in front, pulling on the other handles. They trundled the clumsy device through the lanes, both chanting Latin prayers as they stared dismally at the ground. Folk in the street removed their caps or crossed themselves as they passed by with their ‘corpse’, until they doubled back towards the far end of Canon’s Row. Here they stopped near the foot of the city wall where there were gardens and some rough ground. In the shelter of some bushes, the lid was opened and Gwyn clambered out, looking even more dishevelled than usual. Quickly, the Saxon took him to a small arch in a stone hut built against the fifteen-foot wall and hurried him inside.

‘The city water conduits!’ exclaimed Nesta, at this point in Thomas’s story. ‘The ducts come through the wall there, so I’ve been told.’

John nodded, having had a murdered corpse in there quite recently. ‘The water comes from the springs at St Sidwell-let’s hope that Gwyn doesn’t catch the jaundice from it, like his sons.’

‘He can’t stay there long, poor man!’ said Nesta in some concern. ‘A big fellow like him can hardly stand upright in those low passages. What’s to be done about it?’

De Wolfe explained that he had already bribed a carter to smuggle Gwyn out of the city next morning, under a load of finished cloth being taken down to the port of Topsham, five miles down the river.

‘But he need only go halfway, as he can seek board and lodging at St James’s Priory, where they know him from our previous visits. Even if the damned sheriff gets to discover where he is, he would have to desecrate sanctuary all over again.’

The one-eyed potman limped across to refill their mugs as Nesta asked the coroner how Richard de Revelle had taken this latest setback to his scheming.

‘He had his usual tantrum, shouting and screaming at me after Ralph Morin had told him that the bird had flown!’ said John with satisfaction. ‘I had insisted that Ralph and Gabriel search my house as soon as they had given up looking for Gwyn in the church. They were only too delighted to report to the sheriff that I had been asleep by my fireside and that there was no sign of Gwyn. Thank God that Matilda was on her knees in St Olave’s while all this was going on!’

The Welsh woman still looked worried. ‘But the sheriff must surely know that, once again, you organized Gwyn’s disappearance?’

‘He can think what he likes, but he can’t prove it-and everyone from the castle constable down to the most junior soldier is being as stupid and obstructive as they can in helping him find Gwyn.’

De Wolfe leaned across the table towards his clerk. ‘Thomas, have you wormed anything yet from your cathedral spies?’

The unfrocked priest now lived on sufferance in the servant’s quarters of one of the canon’s houses in the Close, sleeping on a straw mattress in a passageway. However, lowly as his accommodation was, it was ideally placed for him to hear all the gossip of the cathedral and its many inhabitants, but so far, he had gleaned nothing about any scandal involving the Tyrell family.

‘Then I must confront Serlo and Christina directly,’ growled John. ‘I will shake their tree and see if anything falls from it.’

‘What about this harlot in Waterbeer Street?’ asked Nesta. ‘Those girls always have a man protecting them and taking the lion’s share of the money they earn. Maybe he would know something, if the killing was almost on his doorstep?’

‘An excellent idea, madam! I’ll do that tomorrow, without fail.’ John squeezed her thigh under the table. ‘I’ve not seen the inside of a brothel for a long time!’ he added mischievously.

Next morning, de Wolfe sent Thomas de Peyne down to St James’s Priory to check that Gwyn had arrived safely and to hand over some money to the prior for his food and lodging. As soon as he had seen the little clerk jogging off on his pony, which he insisted on riding side-saddle like a woman, de Wolfe made his way to a substantial house near the East Gate.

The young maid who answered the door conducted him to an ante-room off the large hall, where Christina sat near a small fire-pit, a pewter cup of wine in her hand. She was still dressed in a grey kirtle, her husband’s funeral having taken place only the day before. However, her widow’s weeds were now lightened by a gold cord wound twice around her slim waist, its large tassels hanging down almost to the floor. She wore no veil or wimple around her head and throat, her fair hair being coiled in plaits over each ear and confined in gold-net crespines. Christina Tyrell looked more like a woman expecting her lover than a mourning widow and she seemed annoyed by the appearance of the county coroner.

‘Have you come to tell me that they have recaptured that rogue who murdered my husband?’ The glare she gave him as she spoke was not a good start to their conversation.

‘That man had nothing to do with it, as you well know,’ replied John bluntly. ‘I am fully aware of the deceit that was arranged between you and the sheriff over that blood-stained sword.’

The woman flushed and protested, but her eyes dropped, unable to meet the steely gaze of the coroner. ‘The fellow is guilty, so what does it matter?’ she muttered.

‘I have a better candidate for the killing, mistress,’ he boomed. ‘Or perhaps even two! What about you or your lover Serlo? Both of you had reasons for wanting Walter dead.’

Christina lifted her eyes to look defiantly at de Wolfe, a flush of anger flooding her face. ‘What nonsense is this? Are you mad?’ she shouted.

‘Your husband frequented a whorehouse in the city-is that the habit of a devoted spouse? Did you want rid of him because of that-were you a woman spurned? It is well known that you hanker after his brother, a younger man.’

‘This is nonsense-you cannot speak to me like this!’ she babbled.

John slammed one fist into the other palm. ‘I am investigating a murder, madam. I can ask what I want!’ he roared.

Her response was dramatic, as well as unexpected. She bent to the circle of stones around the fire-pit and snatched up a heavy iron poker. Raising it over her head, she lunged at de Wolfe with a screech of fury and swung it at him. Startled, he backed away and lifted an arm to protect himself, receiving a stinging blow just above his wrist. With a bellowed curse, he retreated backwards towards the door, where the little maid crouched in terror at her mistress’s sudden fury.

‘Get out, damn you!’ howled Christina, lifting the poker for another blow. ‘Get out, you foul-mouthed, evil man!’

As he could hardly draw his dagger on a woman, John decided to evacuate and survive to fight another day. ‘You’ll regret this, madam!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll be back when you’ve come to your senses.’

He slid through the door and slammed it behind him, making his way rapidly through the hall to the street. Thankfully the virago did not pursue him and he stopped a few yards away to recover his ruffled dignity. He would cheerfully fight a dozen of Saladin’s warriors, but an angry widow with a fire-iron was too much of a challenge for him.

Determined never to let anyone else ever become aware of the ignominious defeat he had suffered, the coroner marched away and went through the city down to Exe Island and the fulling mills.

Half-afraid that his quarry had already left to visit the doughty Christina, he went straight to the clerk’s hut to see if Serlo Tyrell was still there. He was gratified to find him leaning against a table, listening to a string of figures that Martin Knotte was reading out to him from a parchment. As with the vast majority of the population, Serlo was illiterate and, like most merchants, depended on someone in the lower religious orders to handle all accounts and correspondence.

The fuller looked up in surprise, which turned to irritation when he saw de Wolfe. ‘I’ve told you all I know, Crowner,’ he snapped. ‘Why are you persisting with this, when everyone knows who the culprit is?’

De Wolfe looked pointedly at the clerk. ‘It would be better if I spoke to you in private, for your own sake.’

‘I have no secrets from Martin, you can say what you like. But make it quick, I have other things to do.’ The fuller accompanied his words with a scowl.

‘Very well-but I have just come from the house of Christina,’ John announced. He saw a flicker of apprehension pass over Serlo’s face, before he jerked his head at his clerk. ‘Perhaps you had better leave us, Martin, if this is to be a personal matter,’ he muttered.

When the man had left, the coroner made the same verbal assault as he had on Christina. ‘I am well aware of your connivance at the crude deception the sheriff tried with the chicken’s blood,’ he grated. ‘I also know about your liaison with your sister-in-law.’

Serlo paled, but his mouth set into an obstinate expression. ‘I deny both your impertinent allegations. The sheriff shall hear of this!’

‘He’ll hear of it from my own lips, as soon as I can find him!’ snarled John. ‘Don’t play the innocent with me, I know from Christina that you are lovers!’ This was stretching the truth somewhat, but he was past caring, with Gwyn in such danger. ‘Furthermore, I suspect that both you and she might be directly involved in Walter’s death. You stand to gain the whole fulling business now that your mistress is available as a wife. And is she not revenged upon him, for preferring a whore in Waterbeer Street to herself?’

There was no iron poker available in the office, but Serlo looked as if he would have used one if it had been to hand. His pallor turned to red rage and a quivering finger was pointed at de Wolfe’s face as he began a stinging tirade of denial and outrage at the coroner’s accusations.

As with Christina, John’s faint hopes of his frontal attack causing a breakdown and a confession came to nothing. Although the two men shouted at each other for several more minutes, the coroner knew that he had no more ammunition to throw at Serlo Tyrell and, once again, he was forced to beat a fruitless retreat. Outside the hut, he found Martin Knotte, who although now a few yards from the door, had obviously been listening to the heated exchanges inside.

‘I’ll walk with you to the gate, Sir John,’ he said obsequiously and pattered alongside towards the opening in the fence around the mills.

‘I was mainly Master Walter’s clerk’ he said carefully. ‘So I know quite a lot about his affairs, both business and private.’

De Wolfe stopped in his tracks and stared hard down at Martin’s smooth face. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’ he demanded.

‘I could hardly help hear a little of what was said in there,’ he said, gesturing back towards his office. ‘As a good citizen, I thought I should confirm that Walter used to frequent the city streets late at night,’ he coughed delicately. ‘In fact, he used to visit a whorehouse very near where he was found dead. I regret to say that his marriage was not a happy one.’

‘I knew all this, fellow,’ said John suspiciously. ‘Why should you be telling me now?’

‘Master Walter often carried large sums of money, when he was either buying or selling. The night he died, I know that he had gone to the New Inn to meet a master-weaver to receive payment for a consignment of best wool. Yet that money was never accounted for in my records and both Mistress Christina and Serlo say they have never seen it.’

‘There was no purse on his body when it was found,’ agreed de Wolfe. ‘How much should it have contained?’

‘Four pounds, according to my invoicing-a great sum of money to go astray.’

‘Could this harlot have taken it from him? Yet he was found dead outside, he would not have let her rob him in the brothel.’

Martin Knotte shrugged. ‘Might she not have warned some accomplice that he was carrying such a sum?’ he suggested.

‘I had considered that before, but I did not know then how much coin he was carrying,’ admitted John. ‘I must have some words with this strumpet.’

They had reached the gateway and after Martin had smirked a farewell, John strode off in the direction of the West Gate, deep in thought.

Once back inside the city, he decided to follow up these hints that maybe Walter Tyrell’s fondness for whoring had some connection with his death. He made his way to Waterbeer Street and, careless of who might see him knocking on the door of a house of ill-repute, was admitted by a toothless old crone who looked as if she herself might have been a harlot around the time of Old King Henry’s coronation!

She stared at him in consternation, unsure if the county coroner had come on business or pleasure. He soon cleared up her doubts by demanding to know if there was a girl here named Bernice, his harsh tone indicating that his interest in her was purely professional.

The dingy building had several small chambers downstairs and the upper floor was also divided into rooms that were little more than cubicles. The hag climbed laboriously up a flight of wooden steps and pushed aside one of the hanging sheets of thick leather that served as doors.

‘Bernice, here’s a gentleman to see you,’ cackled the old woman and stood aside to admit de Wolfe, who waved her away before he entered. The dismal cell contained a stool, a straw mattress on the floor and a surprisingly healthy-looking young woman of about eighteen. She was squatting on the stool, biting into a hunk of bread, a large piece of cheese in the other hand. Bernice immediately put the food on the floor, sprang up and smiled ingratiatingly at the visitor, assuming that he was an unexpected client.

‘I am the coroner, girl!’ said John severely, though he had already taken in the fact that the girl was quite pretty, different from the usual sad drabs that worked in these stews. ‘Sit down, lass…I need to talk to you about Walter Tyrell.’

A succession of emotions passed across the young woman’s face, surprise sliding into fear, then settling into wariness. ‘I know nothing about him, sir,’ she said stubbornly, in a thick rural accent. ‘He was just a man who came here.’

‘But he always asked for you, didn’t he?’

‘He did, sir. That’s because I’m cleaner and prettier than the others,’ she added, with a simple honesty that contained no conceit.

‘Did he have to pay more for you, then?’ asked the coroner.

‘Indeed, sir. He always seemed to have plenty of pennies.’

Bernice had a naive directness that John found both touching and rather attractive. He wondered sadly what she would be like after five or ten years in this place. ‘And to whom did he pay those pennies?’ he asked. ‘Was it you or the old woman downstairs?’

The girl shook her head, her brown curls bouncing. ‘Neither, sir. He always came late on certain evenings and my man was always here to take the money.’

‘Your man? What man is that?’

‘Elias Palmer, my protector. He runs three of the girls in this house.’

John nodded his understanding. The premises were used by several pimps and their girls, paying a rent to the owner of the house, who could be anyone, even one of the city burgesses. In some towns, there were brothels owned by senior churchmen. However, this was not getting him anywhere in respect of his investigation.

‘What about the night he was killed nearby? Anything different about that night? Was he alone?’

‘He was always alone, sir. He never talked to me much, he was too busy doing other things.’ She smiled up at de Wolfe innocently.

‘Did you see him paying your man? Did he have a purse on his belt?’

A cloud seemed to pass over the girl’s face and her manner changed. ‘He did have a purse, sir. He always did.’

De Wolfe’s instincts were aroused. There was something here. ‘Come girl, tell me exactly. Was this Elias in the room here with you then?’

She shook her head, looking decidedly evasive now. ‘He never came in, in case the gentleman was still having his pleasure. He always waited at the bottom of the stairs for his money.’

‘This night, did he follow Walter Tyrell out into the street?’

Bernice’s open nature seemed to return, as she felt on safer ground. ‘No sir, he came back up to me as he always did, to give me the two pennies I had earned.’ There was a ring of truth about this, but John still smelt a rat.

‘Bernice, you are not telling me everything!’ he barked, bending down towards her so that his intimidating dark face was pushed almost into hers.

The girl suddenly burst into tears. ‘I told Elias that Walter had a very large purse that night. I even saw the glint of a gold bezant, when he opened it to give me an extra penny for myself.’

A feeling of triumph began to steal through John’s soul. Here was something worth pursuing. ‘So what did Elias do then?’ he demanded.

Bernice shrugged, two tears coursing down her pleasant face. ‘Nothing, sir. Just went downstairs again.’

De Wolfe straightened up and on an impulse, stroked the top of the distressed girl’s head. ‘Calm yourself, girl. I’m going now. But where can I find this Elias Palmer?’

The round face came up again, the smile back in place. ‘Old Maud might know, sir. He’s always around somewhere.’

Downstairs, he found the woman sitting on an upturned bucket in the unkempt backyard. At his demand, she waddled back into the passageway and yelled for Elias outside the first door on the left. Impatiently, de Wolfe thrust aside the leather curtain and saw a man lying face down on the bed, his breeches around his ankles.

As he jumped up in surprise, grabbing for his nether garments, there was a squawk from beneath him and a girl rapidly hoisted a tattered blanket over her head.

‘Who the hell are you, damn it?’ demanded the man furiously, as he pulled his breeches up below his short tunic and fumbled with his belt.

‘Sampling your own goods, eh?’ replied John sarcastically. ‘I’m the coroner and I want a word with you. Come out into the yard when you’re decent.’

A moment later, Elias Palmer appeared reluctantly through the back door. He was a dandified fellow of middle height, with a shock of light brown hair. His otherwise unremarkable face was disfigured by a livid birthmark that covered the whole of one cheek and part of his temple.

‘What do you want from me, Crowner?’ he mumbled. ‘There’s no law against running a few girls.’

John was not sure if there was or not, but it was of no interest to him. ‘What did you do with the money, Elias?’ he snapped, poking his head forward like a vulture examining its next meal.

‘What money? I don’t know what you’re talking about?’ stammered the whoremonger, but his whole attitude shouted that he did indeed know.

‘Walter Tyrell, that’s what I’m talking about!’ yelled de Wolfe. ‘Bernice told you he had a fat purse with gold in it, didn’t she?’

‘What if she did?’ faltered Elias. ‘There’s no harm in gossip.’

‘But there’s harm in murder, Elias!’ snarled the coroner. ‘You followed him out to that side alley, killed him and stole his purse. Admit it now, for you’re going to swing for it, one way or the other.’

Elias looked wildly about him, stammering denials. At the back door, the faces of old Maud, Bernice and the other girl peered out in fearful fascination. With a sudden lunge, Elias turned and made for the fence that ran around the small yard. With de Wolfe pounding after him, he got to the rickety gate to fumble with the rusty catch. John remembered that he had Gwyn’s sword hanging from his baldric and with a swish, he drew it from the scabbard. There was a flash of sunlight reflected from its blade as he swung it high and brought it down on the top bar of the gate, an inch from Elias’s feverish fingers. The steel sliced clean through the wood and stuck quivering in the thicker central bar, pinning the loose hem of the man’s tunic to the gate.

Almost gibbering with fear, Elias dropped to the ground, his tunic ripping, as he held his hands up in supplication to the coroner.

‘I didn’t kill him, sir, I swear. I just took the purse from his dead body.’

John hauled him to his feet and jabbed him none too gently in the back with the point of the sword.

‘You can tell that to the king’s justices at the next Eyre of Assize,’ he promised grimly.

St James’s Priory was a small religious house on the bank of the river, between Exeter and Topsham. The prior and four monks were Cluniacs, their mother house being St Martin’s in Paris and they led a quiet existence, tending their vegetable plots and fish-traps on the Exe.

When Thomas had visited Gwyn, he had found him well-fed and comfortable, but fretting at his incarceration, unable to visit his wife and children. On the afternoon following his visit to the brothel, de Wolfe went down to see his henchman. He took care to ensure that none of the sheriff’s spies was following him, as he knew that de Revelle was still trying to discover where John’s officer was hidden.

‘How long am I going to be stuck here?’ demanded the Cornishman. ‘Thomas has been very good, bringing me news of my family, but if I stay here much longer, I’ll turn into a bloody monk myself!’

John brought him up to date on events, especially his arrest of Elias Palmer, who was now confined in Rougemont, where the cells had been emptied by this week’s hangings. The pimp, while steadfastly denying the murder, had confessed to taking the purse from Walter’s belt and, in fact, led John to a chest in his own room in the brothel where he produced the bag, still filled with coin.

‘But the damned sheriff still won’t accept that he killed Tyrell, the obstinate swine,’ fumed John. ‘He still believes that I have spirited you away somewhere and says that he’ll wait until doomsday to bring you before his court.’

‘Does he admit that he worked that swindle over the chicken blood on my sword?’

‘Not at all! Even though I told him that Christina had admitted knowing about it-which is stretching the truth a little.’

‘That poxy sword!’ muttered Gwyn. ‘It’s got me into trouble again, damn it.’

John pulled aside his riding cloak to show the ornate sheath dangling from his baldric, the diagonal strap over his shoulder that took the weight of the weapon. ‘I’ve brought it down for you, in case there’s any trouble if de Revelle does discover where you are.’

‘Thank you, Crowner,’ said Gwyn, rather diffidently. ‘But that thing has brought me nothing but ill-fortune. Grateful as I am for your gift, I think I’d like to see it exchanged for a less grand weapon, as I’m convinced there’s something about it that brings bad luck.’

Gwyn’s pure Celtic blood gave him a strongly superstitious nature and John had learned that it was futile to argue with him. He agreed to return it to Roger Trudogge and negotiate for a less ornate blade.

Feeling frustrated with his lack of progress in closing this affair, de Wolfe rode back to Exeter, pondering his next moves in trying to lift the cloud of suspicion that still hung over Gwyn. Every so often, a worm of doubt wriggled in his mind, whispering that the big man might really have killed the fuller, but each time John crushed the notion, knowing in his heart that though Gwyn might swing at someone in a raging temper, there was no way that he would lay in wait for them in a dark alley.

The problem was that the sheriff resolutely refused to give up this golden opportunity to hurt his brother-in-law, in revenge for John’s earlier exposure of him as a potential traitor and rebel. Only Matilda’s intercession had saved Richard from the ignominy of dismissal and possible arrest.

‘How in God’s name can I convince everyone that this thieving whoremonger is the real culprit?’ he muttered under his breath, as he rode Odin through the same South Gate where his officer had been briefly imprisoned. He thought of putting Elias to the Ordeal, a form of torture involving hot irons or boiling water, but that was intended to try the issue of guilt or innocence, not to extract a confession. Maybe he could submit him to a ‘pressing’, usually reserved for suspects who refused to answer any questions, being ‘mute of malice’. The unfortunate victim was manacled to the ground and had iron weights placed on his chest, the number being increased until he either confessed or died. However, a coroner could not order this without the agreement of the sheriff, which was hardly likely to be granted.

De Wolfe reached Martin’s Lane and delivered his horse to the stables opposite his house, then walked the rest of the way up to the castle. He had thought to go straight to see Roger Trudogge and negotiate some kind of exchange for Gwyn’s sword, but then decided to see if any new deaths or other mayhem had been reported in his absence. He found Thomas at work as usual on his parchments, as there was much copying to be done to provide duplicates for various courts and the royal archives. The clerk looked up as he entered and enquired after Gwyn, then went on to deliver a nugget of information from the cathedral Close.

‘You know, Crowner, that I sleep on a pallet in a passageway of the house of one of the canons. Well, early this morning, as people were stirring to go to Prime, I chanced to hear two of the canon’s vicars talking in a room nearby, that had only a curtain for a door.’

John grunted, as he was well aware that Thomas was the most inquisitive person west of Winchester and that ‘chancing to hear’ probably meant that he had had his ear pressed to the door-curtain.

‘One of them was asking the other’s advice about repeated confessions he had been hearing from a particular supplicant,’ the clerk continued. ‘Though he could not repeat the content, even to a fellow priest, he felt it was so serious that he would have to consult their canon, the archdeacon or even the bishop about whether he should break the sanctity of the confessional and divulge something to the secular authorities.’

John frowned at his clerk, puzzled as to why he was being told this, as it seemed a matter for the ecclesiastical community. Usually, such dilemmas concerned flagrant breaches of morals as well as the law, such as sexual transgressions like incest or the ravishing of women or even children.

‘But what’s this to do with the coroner, Thomas?’ he asked gruffly.

The clerk’s bright little eyes glinted as he delivered his punch-line. ‘The man they were talking about was Martin Knotte!’ he whispered conspiratorially.

The coroner hurried down through the city, his wolfskin cloak flying out behind him in the breeze like a large bat as he loped along, his dark head thrust out before him. Thomas pattered along behind him, unsure of what all this was leading to, apart from the fact that his master was going to have strong words with the chief clerk at the fulling mills.

For his part, de Wolfe turned over Thomas’s news in his mind as he pushed his way through the crowded streets to reach the West Gate. What was all this about-or was it a complete irrelevancy? Perhaps the clerk’s confession was merely about being unfaithful to his wife, but that would hardly be grounds for the vicar’s grave concern.

Could it be that Martin Knotte had learned something damning about Serlo or even Christina? Had he discovered that one of them had in fact dispatched Walter Tyrell? And did loyalty to his employer conflict with his conscience and his public duty?

‘Only one bloody way to find out!’ he growled under his breath, as he strode along. ‘Shake it out of the fat bastard!’ De Wolfe always favoured the direct approach to problems.

At the mill on the river, he went straight to the clerk’s hut, where he left Thomas outside, fearing that a witness might distract his quarry from John’s intended verbal assault. Inside, he found Martin sitting at his table with a quill in his hand, poised over a parchment. The man looked ill, his podgy face almost a waxy colour.

He jumped to his feet and courteously pulled up a stool for the coroner on the other side of his bench. As John sat down, the big sword jabbed against the wooden floor and became unhooked from his belt, not being designed for warriors who sat indoors. With a cluck of irritation, he pulled it from under his cloak and rested it against the table in front of him, before glaring at the man who had resumed his seat opposite.

‘Now then, what’s the trouble, Knotte?’ he demanded brusquely. ‘Never mind how I know, but it has come to my ears that you have information that is distressing you. Is it something that I or even the sheriff should know about, eh?’

If it had been possible for the clerk to grow any paler, he would have done so. Stutteringly, he denied any problems, but his demeanour patently gave the lie to his words. De Wolfe kept at him, rasping and demanding that he divulge anything that law officers should know about, but Martin Knotte remained adamant in his tremulous denials.

‘Those priests have broken their trust,’ he complained bitterly. ‘How else could you know of this?’

‘Ha! So there is something!’ snarled de Wolfe, triumphantly. ‘You admit it now?’

Knotte shook his head stubbornly. ‘It is a personal, private matter, Crowner. It does not concern you, and you should not persecute me like this!’

John stood up, leaning on the table and glowering down at the seated clerk. ‘Does it concern Serlo, your master?’ he shouted. ‘Or perhaps the widow Christina?’

Martin shook his head violently, ‘Why should it? It has nothing to do with them.’

‘Are you just being faithful to them?’ barked John. ‘Misplaced loyalty will not save your neck if it conceals knowledge you may have against the King’s Peace!’

Again the ashen-faced man fended off all the coroner’s efforts to prise information from him, subsiding into a stubborn denial of any knowledge of wrong-doing by his employer.

Eventually, de Wolfe lost patience and jumped to his feet to wag a stern finger at Martin. ‘Then I must go and tackle Serlo himself, to drag the truth from him. It will go badly for you if I discover that you have been concealing anything from me!’

He stalked out of the hut and swept up Thomas outside, hurrying him around the corner of the nearest mill-shed in his search for the master-fuller. If he had not left Martin in such a temper, he would have remembered to ask the man about Serlo’s whereabouts, but now he had to seek him himself. As a workman passed, bent under the weight of a large bale of raw wool, John glared at him and demanded to know where his master was to be found.

‘Try the lower mill, sir,’ replied the man. ‘I saw him there an hour ago.’ They went across the yard to another large, but ramshackle wooden building and Thomas pointed to a small shed attached to one end. ‘That looks like the hut of the other clerk. He may be in there.’

But Serlo was not there, neither was he in the fulling mill, where a score of men and boys, some of them children, were labouring at tanks and troughs of water. They were washing fleeces, some treading them rhythmically with their feet to remove the dirt and grease, throwing in handfuls of fine clay to assist the process.

Above the incessant splashing and chatter, Thomas managed to question several men, but came back to de Wolfe shaking his head. ‘He has gone again, no one knows where,’ he reported as they walked out of the watery hell that was the workplace of so many of Exeter’s citizens.

‘Damn the man, he’s never around when I want him!’ growled the coroner.

‘He’s unlikely to have fled the country now that he’ll soon own all this if he weds Widow Christina,’ observed Thomas, waving an arm around them.

‘Let’s go, then, I’ve had enough for today,’ grunted de Wolfe. Then he stopped walking and slapped his left hip, feeling an empty space. ‘Damnation, I’ve left Gwyn’s sword in the clerk’s hut. I wanted to take it back to the armourer on the way home.’

They changed direction and went the few hundred paces back to the upper mill. At the hut, John pushed at the door and found it immovable.

‘Strange, it must be jammed,’ he muttered, putting his shoulder to the door with little effect.

‘There’s no keyhole, so it must be barred on the inside,’ said the observant Thomas.

Now suspicious, John hammered on the boards with his fist and yelled for Martin Knotte to open it. There was no response and he kicked at the door, this time feeling it creak and bend. A few more hefty blows with his foot splintered several of the thin planks, sufficient for him to put his arm through and push the bar up out of its brackets.

As it flew open, he charged in, shouting angrily. ‘You can’t get away with it by avoiding me, fellow!’ he yelled.

Then he stopped dead, Thomas peering round him at a gruesome sight. Martin Knotte knelt in the corner of the room, as if in prayer. His right shoulder was supported by the wall, keeping his body upright, though he was stone dead. He was impaled on Gwyn’s sword, the point embedded in the lower part of his chest, the pommel jammed into the angle of the walls and floor. Blood lay in a wide, spreading pool around him and dribbled obscenely from the corner of his mouth.

‘Great Christ, what does this mean?’ rasped de Wolfe hoarsely, as his clerk began crossing himself rapidly and murmuring Latin prayers for the dead.

The coroner strode across to the corpse, to make sure that he was past any aid, then pulled the body over on to its side, so that he could withdraw the sword.

‘Is this another murder, master?’ asked Thomas in a horrified whisper.

‘Falling on a sword in a locked room?’ he snapped. ‘I don’t think so, Thomas! The man has committed felo de se! But why, for God’s sake?’

As he removed the six inches of steel from Knotte’s chest, the more squeamish Thomas turned away and as he did so, his eyes fell on a sheet of parchment left on the end of the table. While the coroner was straightening out the limbs of the corpse, his clerk began reading the document, the ink of which was hardly dry.

He held it out towards de Wolfe. ‘I think I had better read this to you, Crowner!’ he said tremulously.

By noon the following day, Gwyn was back in his usual place in the Bush Inn, sitting opposite John de Wolfe at his table near the fire-pit. Thomas de Peyne was next to him, the pair beaming at the reunion, as was Nesta when she slipped on to the bench alongside her lover.

‘I’ve got five minutes before I need to check that stupid new cook-maid hasn’t overcooked the mutton,’ she said. ‘So tell me what happened today.’

‘I escaped from that damned priory today!’ guffawed Gwyn. ‘Their ale wasn’t too bad, but they live on bloody fish! I’d have grown fins if I’d stayed there any longer.’

‘But why were you able to come out, that’s the point?’ persisted the auburn-haired landlady.

De Wolfe broke in, to begin telling her the story of his suspicions of the whore’s pimp, then of Serlo and Christina, all of which were confounded by Martin Knotte’s suicide.

‘I had it all wrong, twice over,’ he admitted. ‘But there was never any reason even to consider that fat clerk down at the mills.’ He stopped to take a long pull at his quart of Nesta’s fine ale. ‘At least, not until Thomas read out that message that Martin Knotte had penned just before he spitted himself on Gwyn’s sword.’

‘Not my sword any longer, Crowner!’ grunted the Cornishman. ‘Thank God you’ve already taken it back to Roger Trudogge. The bloody thing had bad fortune written all over it, not some Latin message!’

Ignoring his officer’s interruption, John continued with his tale. ‘Serlo and Christina, whatever their secret passions, had nothing to do with Walter’s death, glad though they might now be that it’s turned out this way.’

‘But what about that horrible fellow from the whorehouse?’ demanded Nesta. ‘You said that he had Walter’s purse full of money!’

‘That slimy bastard told the truth for once, that he had taken it from the corpse. When the harlot Bernice told him how much coin she had glimpsed on Walter’s belt, he ran after him, presumably to assault and rob him in the alley. But someone had already done the job for him and all he had to do was snatch the purse and run.’

‘He’ll hang for the theft anyway, even if he didn’t kill Walter,’ observed Gwyn with some satisfaction.

‘But what did Martin Knotte’s message say?’ asked Nesta, impatiently.

De Wolfe gestured at Thomas. ‘Let him tell you, he was the only one who could read it!’

The little clerk wriggled self-consciously, but was quite pleased to be asked. ‘It was a confession of his partiality to the sin of Sodom,’ he began portentously.

‘You mean, he liked buggering boys?’ growled the down-to-earth Gwyn. ‘Then at least that sword did a bit of good, in getting rid of him!’

‘It seems that he had long suffered from this aberration, but had managed to conceal it from everyone, until the night of Walter’s murder,’ continued Thomas. ‘Being a married man, he had to use that hut in the fulling mills for his activities and early that evening, Walter walked in unexpectedly.’

‘Caught him in flagrante delicto with a lad from Bretayne,’ explained John, Bretayne being the slum area down near the west wall of the city.

‘His master was outraged and promised to expose him next day to his wife and the cathedral proctors.’

‘Why them?’ asked Nesta. ‘Surely such a crime should go to the sheriff?’

Thomas shook his head. ‘As a clerk, he was in lower religious orders and could claim ‘benefit of clergy’, he explained. ‘That would remove judgment on his misdeeds from the secular to the ecclesiastical authorities.’

‘Though after the bishop’s Consistory Court found him guilty, they might well hand him over to the sheriff to be hanged,’ added John, with some satisfaction.

‘The note ended with a confession that he had panicked and lain in wait for Walter to come out of the brothel. As his clerk, he knew he was going to the New Inn that night to collect payment for wool, so he followed him and the first chance he had to slay him was in that alley off Waterbeer Street.’ Thomas paused to make the sign of the cross at the memory. ‘He had taken a large knife that was used in the mill for cutting the ropes binding wool bales. He used it to slash at Walter’s neck, then ran away.’

‘Yes, but that was days ago,’ objected Nesta. ‘Why wait until last night to kill himself?’

‘His conscience eventually drove him to it,’ explained the clerk. ‘He knew that Gwyn was being falsely accused by the sheriff and was in grave danger of being hanged. Then the Crowner’s persistence in trying lay the blame on his master Serlo and Christina was the last straw. If he didn’t own up, someone was going to suffer. Even though Martin Knotte was an evil pervert, he still had some sense of honour.’

There was a thoughtful silence, broken by a loud belch from Gwyn. ‘What did that other bastard, Richard de Revelle, say when you took him the parchment?’ he asked.

‘Huffed and puffed, refused to believe it, saying it was a forgery!’ answered John, grinning lopsidedly at the memory of the sheriff’s discomfiture. ‘It took a view of Martin’s corpse, the shattered door and the bloody sword before he grudgingly admitted that it must be true.’

‘A bloody sword indeed!’ said Gwyn with feeling. ‘I wonder what will become of it now?’

John de Wolfe drained the last of his quart. ‘Roger Trudogge said that he might already have sold it again,’ he said. ‘It seems that some knight took a fancy to it before we bought it and wanted the armourer to let him know if it came up for sale again. He wants a good weapon to take on this new Crusade we hear about, the one that’s leaving from Venice.’

‘I wish him luck with it!’ grunted Gwyn. ‘He’ll need it.’