The Elixir of Death

CHAPTER ONE

November 1195

'He should never have been at sea this late in the season!'

The coroner's deep voice competed with the wind whistling past the ears of the two horsemen. They waited on the seaward end of a long ridge, high above the beach, while a third man laboured up behind them, his pony trudging wearily after the tedious journey west from Exeter.

'Not this far down-channel, now that we're well into the autumn,' agreed his henchman, a huge disheveled Cornishman astride a large brown mare. Gwyn of Polruan had ginger hair poking from under his shabby leather hood and a bushy moustache of the same colour hanging down on either side of his mouth. All were damp from the spray and fitful rain that half a gale was hurling at them from the west, under dark clouds that scudded across the afternoon sky.

'Are you sure that's Thorgils' vessel, Crowner?' asked the thin figure on the pony, as he pulled alongside them. Thomas de Peyne was the coroner's clerk, his sallow face looking as miserable as the Dartmoor pony on which he sat side-saddle like a woman.

'Of course I'm not sure!' snapped Sir John de Wolfe.

His meagre patience was worn even thinner by almost two days' riding from Devon's county town. 'But the bailiff claimed that it was — and I see no reason to doubt him.'

Gwyn, having been a fisherman farther down the coast before he became Sir John's bodyguard, considered himself an expert on things maritime. At least he knew more than the other two, and now he pointed with an air of authority down to the mouth of the river, where the low tide had exposed a broad expanse of sand. It lay about a quarter of a mile below them, beyond the steep slope of coarse grass that ran down to the rocks at the water's edge.

'That cog is just like Thorgils', though it's too far away to see any details,' he declared. 'But it could well be the Mary and Child Jesus. '

At these holy words, Thomas de Peyne crossed himself reverently, as he did many times a day. 'That bailiff said that some of the crew have perished, but we must hope that God decreed that our friend was not one of them,' he piped, his squeaky voice contrasting with the gruff tones of his companions.

They looked down through the rain to the beach at the foot of the bluff where they now sat on their weary horses. The hull of the boat lay on its side, its broken mast digging into the sand. The heavy surf had pushed it up to the high-water mark, only a few yards from the foot of the low cliffs.

Just as well there are no spring tides at this time of the month,' bellowed Gwyn above the wind. 'Otherwise she would have been battered to pieces on those rocks.'

The coroner grunted, his favourite form of reply, and continued to study the vista below. He always liked to get any new scene firmly fixed in his mind before speculating on what might have happened. In front of him, a stretch of sand a few hundred paces wide joined the mainland to an island, which was now accessible across the beach until the tide rose again. It was only a few acres in extent, the rocky base rising to a low hill covered with sparse turf. On top of it was a stone hut, hunkered down against the gales that so often threatened to tear it from the small islet.

To his right, the southern coastline of Devon stretched far away in the direction of Plymouth, the cliffs visible for miles between the squalls of driving rain. This whole coast, from Dartmouth sixteen miles behind them, right down to Cornwall, was indented by a series of fjord-like river valleys that cut into the coastal plain that lay below Dartmoor. Below him to his left was the mouth of one of these, the River Avon, whose narrow vale penetrated deeply into the lonely countryside. A few villages were dotted among the heathland that was all that could survive the frequent Atlantic gales — only in the sheltered dales were there woods and cultivation.

At high tide, the winding valley of the Avon was flooded for several miles inland, but now the estuary was almost all sand. The river made a final double bend before it flowed across the wide beach into the sea, between St Michael de la Burgh Island and a low headland on the southern side. They had approached on a track from the north and the wreck now lay below them, driven ashore by the westerly wind almost on to the rocks of the promontory opposite the island. De Wolfe wondered whether the bodies had been found on the same beach.

'Where do we find this bailiff fellow, Crowner?' Gwyn's voice broke into John's reverie and made him suddenly aware of being wet, cold and hungry. Though he and Gwyn had suffered far worse conditions over the years in campaigns stretching from Ireland to Palestine, there was something uniquely depressing about the bone chilling damp of a Devonshire autumn.

'A fire, some food and a warm place to sleep would be more than welcome,' Thomas piped longingly, as if reading his master's thoughts.

De Wolfe stared down once more at the derelict vessel, abandoned on its desolate beach. 'No point in going down there now — it'll be dark in an hour or so,' he grunted. 'We'll come back in the morning, after we've seen these corpses.'

Pulling his horse's head around, belatedly he answered Gwyn's question before moving off along the ridge. 'The bailiff said he lived in Ringmore. That's the manor about a mile west of here, inland from the sea.'

'We should have made the bastard come with us,' grumbled Gwyn. 'It was hard enough finding this damned place, not having someone local to guide us.'

'The poor fellow said he had to hurry back home, as his wife was in childbed!' objected Thomas. His compassion was mixed with his usual desire to contradict everything said by his burly colleague.

The bailiff of Ringmore, one William Vado, had arrived at the coroner's chamber in the gatehouse of Exeter's Rougemont Castle early the previous morning. He had ridden the thirty-five miles in a day and a half, forcing the pace to carry news that had the coroner and his two men saddled up within the hour. They stayed that night in Totnes Castle, the bailiff having parted from them earlier to hurry home to his wife. By late afternoon of the following short November day, they had reached the place overlooking the River Avon that Vado had described.

Now John de Wolfe led the way towards Ringmore across the undulating heath land behind the cliffs. It was deserted apart from some scraggy sheep and a few goats lurking among the bracken and stunted gorse bushes bent over by the prevailing winds. There were only sheep tracks to follow, and John saw that down to his left was another smaller beach at the end of a valley between the cliffs, with a few ramshackle fishermen's huts above the water's edge. The only guides they had to these parts were some instructions offered by the bailiff, together with a rough sketch map hastily drawn on a scrap of parchment by the steward at Totnes Castle.

They crossed this valley higher up and a few minutes later reached the head of yet another glen, where a small stream cut its way down to the sea. Here a lonely village nestled in the valley where, protected from the worst of the winds, trees softened the landscape and some strip fields backed on to the dwellings. Ringmore was little more than a collection of tofts and crofts around a tiny Saxon church. Below it on the slope was a large tithe barn and a fortified house within a rectangular wooden stockade. The cottages were all built either of lime-washed cob on wooden frames or of weathered timber, with roofs of thatch or turf.

'Not much of a place, is it!' grumbled Gwyn, who, though born in Polruan, an equally undistinguished fishing village at the mouth of the Fowey river, had adopted the airs of a city dweller after twenty years as a largely absentee citizen of Exeter.

'As long as they've got somewhere with a sound roof and a fire to dry ourselves by, I don't care what it looks like!' whined little Thomas, his thin shoulders shivering under the threadbare black cloak that enveloped him. He wore a shabby pilgrim's hat and his pallid, thin face peered out miserably from under the wide, floppy brim.

John let his old warhorse Odin pick his way carefully down the slippery rutted track that served as the village street, heading for the larger house that lay inside the palisade of old stakes.

'Does a manor-lord actually live in this God-forsaken place?' grunted Gwyn, looking around at the humble dwellings, most of which were wattle-and-daub huts.

The coroner shook his head, drops of water flicking off his dark, beetling eyebrows. 'The land belongs to Totnes, that's why the steward there could draw us a map. But someone must have ruled here years ago for there to be a manor-house, poor though it looks.'

It turned out that the bailiff now occupied the old place, using it as his base for looking after several villages hereabouts that belonged to the lord of Totnes. This was a legacy from the days of the Conqueror, who gave many parcels of land in this area to his supporter Judhael, who built the castle at Totnes to subdue the local Saxons and Celts.

They rode up to the gate in the stockade and found William Vado hurrying out to meet them in the gathering dusk. He was a stocky fellow of about thirty years, with a square face, a bulbous nose and lank yellow hair that was a legacy from his Saxon mother. He wore a thigh-length tunic of coarse brown serge, clinched with a wide leather belt. Cross-gartered breeches and wooden-soled boots clothed his lower half.

William waved to a couple of skinny lads who emerged from a barn inside the compound and they hurried forward to take the bridles of the visitors' horses.

'You found us, then, Crowner?' he asked in a thick local accent. 'Come inside and get some food and drink inside you. '

It was the more sympathetic Thomas who thought of asking after his wife, as they all dismounted and trudged through the mire of the bailey towards the old manor house.

'She's well, thank you,' answered William Vado. 'A girl again, I'm afraid. Another useless mouth to feed.' He sounded bitter, and they soon learned that his wife had had seven previous children, five of which had died in infancy, leaving two other girls alive.

John looked about him with interest as they crossed the yard and climbed a few steps to the house, for this was one of the original manors that dated back to the early years of the Norman invasion, now well over a century earlier. It was a square, single-storeyed block, built of massive oak timbers on top of a masonry undercroft, with a stone-slabbed roof as a safeguard against fire-arrows. The interior was almost all taken up by the hall, but two rooms had been partitioned off for the family, secure behind a pair of stout iron-banded doors. These remote coastal villages were occasionally ravaged by pirates who came ashore to rape, pillage and replenish their food and fresh water — not only French privateers, but men from as far afield as the Mediterranean.

The hall was lit by unglazed slit windows, through which the fading daylight dimly penetrated. A large firepit occupied the centre of the hall, ringed with whitewashed stones outside a circle of baked clay. The smoke from the heap of burning logs wafted upwards before spreading out to escape through the slits beneath the roof timbers, though some of it circulated back down again to irritate the eyes and throats of the dozen or so people scattered about the hall.

'We can only offer you a place to sleep on the rushes,' said the bailiff apologetically. 'My wife and her womenfolk and the children are swarming about the other chambers like bees in a hive. But there's food and ale aplenty and some wine if you're so inclined.'

'Drying off is our first need,' rumbled Gwyn, shrugging off the frayed leather cape with the pointed hood. He draped it over a stool facing the fire and stamped his cold feet on the floor rushes, disturbing a rat that was foraging for fallen food scraps.

Within a few minutes, they were seated on benches at a nearby trestle table, enjoying the warmth of the flaming beech logs. A pair of serving girls, little more than children, brought platters of spit-baked fish, cold pork and boiled beans and cabbage, with thick trenchers of coarse bread to lay on the table as plates. As usual, the kitchen was in a hut behind the house and the bare-footed maids had to run back and forth through the mud to bring the food to the new arrivals.

'Have some mulled ale to warm you up, sirs,' invited Vado, taking a thick poker from the fire and plunging the red-hot iron into a gallon jug of ale. With a hiss and a sizzle, the turbid liquid almost boiled, and before it could cool he splashed it into a row of crude earthenware pots standing on the table.

Thomas, who disliked ale even more than rough cider, sipped his with ill-concealed distaste, but John and Gwyn gulped the warm fluid gratefully and pushed their pots forward for a refill, while they wolfed down the food. Around them, rough-looking men sitting at other trestles or standing around gazed curiously at these outsiders from the big city.

'Tell us the whole story again, bailiff,' commanded de Wolfe, through a mouthful of gravy-soaked bread. 'Has there been any more news since you returned?'

William Vado, sitting at the end of the table, beckoned to a large, brawny fellow standing nearby, who came and sat with them.

'This is Osbert, the manor-reeve. He can tell you at first hand, as it was he who brought me the news.' The reeve was a villein who was in theory elected by his fellows to represent their interests before the manor court, but in effect was usually the appointee of the lord, who needed someone in every village to organise the day-to-day running of their agricultural labours. Obviously ill at ease in the presence of a knight who was a senior law officer, the village foreman haltingly told his story.

'I was going down to Challaborough beach the evening before last, as someone said they saw a cask washed up. It may have been flotsam full of something, like raisins or wine, so I was prepared to report it.'

He said this virtuously, though everyone, including the coroner, knew very well that he would have been more interested in acquiring salvaged goods for the village — or even himself — rather than for either his lord or the King, to whom all such flotsam legally belonged.

'Anyway, I saw no cask, but when I was on the sands, a crabber came running round from Warren Point and said he had found a dead body!'

Vado explained that Warren Point was the end of the bluff where they had looked across at Burgh Island.

The onlookers in the hall drew perceptibly nearer to the table, eager to hear the story again, though Osbert had regaled them with it many times over the past day or so. Drama and excitement were in short supply in such a remote place as Ringmore.

'Who was this crabber?' demanded de Wolfe. 'He must be accounted as the First Finder.'

This announcement was met with blank stares from both bailiff and reeve. 'We don't really understand this new crowner business, begging your pardon, sir,' confessed the bailiff. 'All I was told last year by my lord's steward in Totnes was that, unless they died in the bosom of their family, all corpses must be reported to Exeter without delay.'

De Wolfe sighed and dropped his small eating dagger on to the table. It was over a year since the Chief Justiciar had revived the old Saxon office of coroner, but most of the minor officials in England still seemed ignorant of the procedures.

'Listen, for Christ's sake! It's simple enough!' he said with his tongue in his cheek, for it wasn't simple at all. 'When someone dies suddenly, whether of violence or poison or anything other than sickness or old age, then whoever comes across the corpse is the "First Finder". He has to raise the hue and cry by knocking up the four nearest households and starting a search for the killer, if one is suspected.'

'What if it's just a child who falls into the millpond, Crowner?' objected a toothless man standing amongst the listeners. 'Or a lad who gets gored by a bull? We've had both those this past autumn. Are we to go racing round the village, looking for a murderer who doesn't exist?'

'Then use your common sense, man!' snapped John irritably. 'But they still have to be reported to the coroner. The reeve or bailiff must inform me without delay, either directly or through your lord's steward.'

There was a disbelieving rumble from the group of village worthies.

'Tis a mortal long ride to Exeter, just to say that some old fellow has broken his neck falling from a hay-wagon,' complained another man.

'It's also the will of King Richard's Council,' rasped the coroner. 'I didn't make the laws, but it's my job to see they are kept. Any breach of the rules means an amercement against the offender or his village, so it doesn't pay to flaunt them.'

At the mention of fines, the small crowd fell silent and watched sullenly as John de Wolfe picked up his knife and began hacking again at his trencher. Gwyn grinned to himself under the shelter of his ale-soaked moustache — he had heard all this before at a dozen places across the county, as the over-taxed population digested news of another means for the Lionheart's ministers to screw more money out of them to pay for his German ransom and his French wars.

'So tell me again about these corpses,' demanded John, belching and picking up his ale jar to wash down the salty fish and the fatty pork.

Osbert picked up his tale where he had left off. 'I don't know this crabber's name, but I can find out in the morning. He's from up Bigbury way, I know him by sight. Anyway, he takes me to the high-water mark and shows me this body — and damn me, if there wasn't another one, fifty paces away.' -

The bailiff, sitting with a jar alongside the coroner, took up the tale.

'When Osbert came back with the news, I went down with two other cottars and searched all along the shore of the bay, this side of the river. We found another dead 'un, then came across the vessel itself, beached fairly high up between the Warren and Sharpland Point.'

'Why did you think the ship belonged to Thorgils of Dawlish?' bleated Thomas. 'Could you read the name on its bow?'

William Vado shook his head sadly. 'I've got no learning, sir. But when we-found these poor dead shipmen, I sent back for our priest to shrive them. He's the only man hereabouts who knows his letters and he said the cog was called the Mary and Child Jesus.'

Osbert piped up again. 'The crabber, who sells his catch and some other fish in Salcombe, says he's seen the vessel berthed there in the past and knew it came from up Dawlish way.',

De Wolfe nodded, as he knew that Thorgils the Boatman, as he was universally known, called at all the South Devon ports to collect cargo for his endless runs back and forth to Normandy and Brittany.

'But this was no ordinary shipwreck, you claim?'

Vado shook his blond bullet-head. 'They were knifed, Crowner! No doubt of it, though I make no claim to being either a soldier or an apothecary. That's why I rode straightway to Totnes to ask my lord's steward what was to be done.'

'And the bodies and the wreck? You have made them secure?' demanded the coroner.

The bailiff nodded virtuously. 'The cadavers are in the church here. We couldn't leave them on the beach till you came. With tides rising with this moon and the wind freshening, they might have been washed back out to sea. Couldn't do anything with the ship until she's lightened of her cargo, but I've set a man and a boy on guard at the head of the beach to keep off any pillagers.' His face darkened as he contemplated the neighbouring villages. 'Those bloody people from Bigbury and Aveton would strip the wreck down to her last dowel-pins, given half a chance.'

De Wolfe turned to his officer. 'Gwyn, how many crew does Thorgils usually carry?'

'Three or four, besides himself, so there's at least one not accounted for. Was he carrying goods for you on his outbound voyage?'

The coroner nodded. 'He took a cargo of wool bales and some finished cloth from Topsham across to Harfleur. I don't know what he was due to bring back. We had no orders for him, but he's hardly likely to have come back empty.'

John de Wolfe was in partnership with Hugh de Relaga, one of Exeter's two portreeves, the leaders of the city burgesses. When John had given up campaigning a couple of years earlier, he had invested the loot he had accumulated in two decades of fighting abroad in a wool exporting business with de Relaga. Though he was only a sleeping partner, he derived a steady profit from the enterprise, more than sufficient to fulfill the legal necessity of a coroner having an income of at least twenty pounds a year. This requirement was in theory a safeguard against corruption, as the King's Council naively thought that anyone with such riches would have no need to embezzle from public funds.

When the visitors had finished the food on the table, they pulled their stools around the edge of the fire-pit and sat with the bailiff and a few of the other villagers. Their pots were refilled by the young servants, and as darkness fell outside rush-lamps were lit and set on sconces around the walls, adding a dim light to the flames that flickered from the fire as more wood was stacked on to it. This was a time of day that John enjoyed, feeling a warm glow from the food and ale inside him and the radiance of the fire outside. Though he was as fond of a woman's company as any man, he felt most at home with plain and sturdy men such as these, telling tales of old battles and country yarns of ghostly hounds and evil spirits roaming the moors.

There were several former archers among the company tonight, and they could match the tales that Gwyn and John could spin about campaigns in Ireland and France, though unlike the coroner and his officer none had been out to the Holy Land on the last Crusade. The dozen men of Ringmore sat absorbed in the talk, this advent of strangers from Exeter being a welcome novelty in the humdrum life of the village. They sat listening to this pair of big men, for Thomas said almost nothing, the little clerk being half asleep on his stool as he nursed his unwanted ale.

After a couple of hours swapping yarns, the fatigue of the day and the quarts of ale began to take their toll. The bailiff drifted off to lie with his wife and new baby, while the other men stumbled out into the darkness to find their own tofts.

A couple of older servants carried out palliasses of hessian stuffed with dry ferns and laid them around the fire-pit for the visitors. Wrapped in their freshly dried riding cloaks, the coroner's team gratefully settled down for the night, and soon the hall echoed with Gwyn's snores, which drowned the rustle of rodents in the straw and the dreamy whimpers of the dogs that slept among the men around the fire.

By dawn, the wind had dropped and the rain had cleared away, so that a watery blue sky streaked with high streamers of cloud greeted the King's officers as they trudged up the muddy track between the manor house and the little church. After quickly breaking their fast on oatmeal gruel and coarse rye bread, with the promise of a better meal later on, they had followed William Vado and his reeve Osbert out into the bailey, where two other men were waiting. One was the sexton, a cottar whose duties included looking after the church, the other the village priest himself, a burly man with cheeks and nose covered with a network of purple veins, which suggested to John that his contacts with the spiritual world came mainly via a wine flask.

Introduced by the bailiff as Father Walter, the custodian of souls in Ringmore mumbled some curt greeting and set off ahead of them to his church, built in Saxon times. This was a small structure of weathered stone, a bare box barely a dozen paces long. It was roofed with wooden shingles, most of which were thick with moss. There was no bell-arch nor porch — it was just a rectangular room with one door and half a dozen arrow-slits for lighting. It compared poorly in both size and construction with the tithe barn next door, indicating the relative importance which the Archdeacon of Totnes assigned to pastoral duties against the collection of taxes.

The parish priest crossed the churchyard inside its ring of old yew trees and hauled open the creaking door to admit them. In the pale morning light, de Wolfe saw a bare chamber with a simple table at the far end serving as the altar, bearing a tin cross and two wooden candlesticks.

'There they are, God rest them,' muttered Walter rather grudgingly, and joined Thomas in making the sign of the Cross. In front of the altar, on the floor of beaten earth, lay three still figures, the upper part of each covered by an empty sack to serve as a shroud.

John de Wolfe stalked towards them, his characteristic stoop making him appear to the bailiff like some large crow as he hovered over the bodies. Bending, he pulled the sack away from the nearest corpse and Gwyn did the same for the other two.

'God blast whoever did this!' snarled the coroner. 'It is Thorgils, just as I feared. '

'And I recognise these other two,' boomed Gwyn. 'They're his crew members, though I don't recall their names.'

The three cadavers lay pale and waxy on the floor, dressed in the simple attire of shipmen — a short, belted tunic of faded blue and stout breeches, their feet bare.

Gwyn bent and picked up one of the hands of the man in the middle.

'Still some death stiffness remaining, so they've not been dead more than a couple of days in this cold weather.' He squinted at the skin of the palms and fingerpads, which was wrinkled and sodden. 'Yet they were long enough in the water to get washerwoman's fingers.'

John stood silently, looking at the faces of the three victims. Thorgils was a grey-bearded man of about sixty years, the other two were stocky seamen probably in their twenties. As de Wolfe stood in pensive contemplation of a man he had known for much of his life, the bailiff stole a look at the coroner. He saw a tall, sinewy man who gave an overall impression of blackness. At forty-one, De Wolfe still had hair the colour of jet, which he wore longer than most Norman knights, swept back from his forehead and curling down to the nape of his neck. Luxuriant eyebrows of the same colour overhung deep-set dark eyes and his long, gaunt face carried a big hooked nose. Though he had no beard or moustache, his cheeks were usually dark with stubble between his weekly shaves with a sharp knife. The only relieving feature of this forbidding visage was the full lips, which the bailiff suspected were a sign of latent passion and a fondness for the ladies. De Wolfe's garb suited his face, as he wore a long sombre grey tunic under his mottled wolf skin mantle. One of the archers had told Vado that during the campaigns in Ireland the coroner had been known as 'Black John' from his predilection for dark clothing and often equally dark moods.

De Wolfe suddenly moved, jerking the bailiff from his contemplation of the coroner. 'Let's see these wounds, Gwyn,' he commanded, bending to the corpse of the ship-master. Between them, they unbuckled Thorgils' wide leather belt and raised his tunic.

'Look on his back, Crowner,' muttered the bailiff, starting forward to help. Turning the body over on to its bearded face, they soon saw that there were two stab wounds in the ship-master's back, between the shoulder blades. The tunic had corresponding cuts, though there was little more than pinkish discoloration on the surrounding cloth. When they looked at the two younger men, the findings were much the same, though one of them had three stab wounds.

Thomas de Peyne, still sensitive to these sights of fatal violence even after more than a year in the coroner's service, held his hand to his mouth and murmured between his fingers.

'Why so little blood, Crowner?'

'They've all been in the damned sea!' grated de Wolfe, his temper made even shorter by the sight of a friend so callously slain — even if he had been cuckolding him for years.

'Whatever blood escaped has been washed away,' added Gwyn, ever eager to show his expertise in matters of violence. 'That's why the tunic is hardly soiled. He must have been pitched into the water soon after the knifing, so that the blood had no time to congeal in the cloth.'

William Vado and the men from the village hovered behind the coroner and his men, staring with interest at their activities. Rough countrymen such as these were no strangers to death, whether of animals, their families or their fellows, for life was hard in these remote areas, where disease, accidents and sometimes winter starvation carried off many people before they reached middle age. Murder was quite uncommon, however, and this was a novelty that they had no intention of missing, their eyes following the coroner's hands as he traced the outline of the wounds.

'These are peculiarly wide stabbings, Gwyn,' growled de Wolfe, pulling the edges of one of the wounds apart with his fingers. 'Surely more than two inches across. What sort of knife made these?'

The Cornishman, crouching down alongside his master, scratched his russet hair, which was as disheveled as a hayrick in a storm.

'Not the usual dagger, Crowner! Yet they seem too clean cut for a broadsword. And you don't dig someone two or three times in the back with a sword!'

John grunted and slid a forefinger into one of the holes. He frowned then pulled it out again and stuck the bloody digit into several more wounds, moving to the other bodies to test them in a similar fashion. His finger penetrated up to the knuckle and when he pulled it out, there was an obscene sucking sound which made the sensitive Thomas shudder.

'Very odd! I get the feeling that the tracks curve inside the body, rather than go straight in,' de Wolfe muttered, almost to himself. Wiping his finger on the tunic of the youngest corpse, he stood up and stared down again at the bodies. 'No other injuries … not that the poor devils needed anything more.'

'And no sign of a fight, for their fists are free of any injury,' added Gwyn. 'Stabbed in the back unawares by some cowardly bastard.'

De Wolfe glared at his companion. 'I think you mean "bastards",' he corrected. 'One attacker couldn't do this alone without the two other sailors fighting back! The crew must have been jumped by several assailants at the same time.'

'Especially if there was another seaman whose body hasn't been found,' cut in Thomas, his sharp mind overcoming his repugnance at the morbid scene.

'Cover the poor devils up again!' commanded the coroner, stepping back to allow the village men to spread the sacks over the victims.

'There's nothing more we can do for them, but I'll have to hold an inquest later this morning.'

'What about the corpses?' asked Thomas. 'Will they be buried here or taken back to their homes in Dawlish?' De Wolfe shrugged. 'It's a hell of long way to carry them, either on a cart or slung across the back of sumpter horses. I'll have to ask the families what they want done.'

'You knew these men before this?' asked the bailiff.

'I knew Thorgils, the ship-master. He was the main carrier for the goods our merchant enterprise send across to Brittany and Normandy — sometimes even to Flanders.'

He saw no point in mentioning that Thorgils' wife Hilda had been his mistress on and off since they were both young. The lissom blonde was the daughter of the reeve of Holcombe, one of the de Wolfe family's two manors on the coast near Teignmouth. Though five years older, John had grown up with Hilda, and by the time she was thirteen they were lovers, albeit clandestinely in the hay-loft or out in the woods. He had gone off to the wars before he was twenty, and though they had reconsummated their romance at intervals over the succeeding years, she had eventually married Thorgils, a much older man, while John had been pushed into his loveless marriage with Matilda de Revelle seventeen years earlier.

As John stood over the slain body of Hilda's husband, he felt a twinge of conscience that he had wronged this old man, even if Thorgils had never known about it. De Wolfe also had to suppress a voice in his head that told him that Hilda was now free, a delectable widow still only in her thirties. His conscience was not troubling him in respect of his own wife, but because of his regular mistress Nesta, the Welsh tavern-keeper with whom he was almost sure he was in love.

As he stood pensively staring at the hessian-covered corpses, he felt the eyes of the other men upon him, waiting expectantly for his next move.

'Are we going to look at this vessel now, Crowner?' prompted Gwyn.

With an almost dog-like shake of his shoulders, John jerked himself back into the present and uttered one of his characteristic throat-clearing noises, which could mean almost anything. Marching towards the door, he beckoned to the others with a sweep of his hand, and a few moments later they were back in the manor bailey, climbing on to their horses, which had been made ready by the youthful grooms.

William Vado rode ahead of them and Osbert the reeve and two other men loped easily behind them, as the horses went at a mere walking pace along the rough track out of the village. They retraced their route of the previous evening towards the bare downs behind the cliffs, but then descended the little wooded valley that led to the fishing huts that John had seen on the small beach. Although the rain and wind had died down, it was much colder, and the first chills of approaching winter were in the air. John wore leather riding gauntlets, but most of the other men had rags wrapped around their hands to keep some feeling in their fingers. The two village men, who seemed to be some sort of assistants to the reeve, were bare-footed, but their horny soles seemed impervious to both sharp stones and the cold. When they reached Challaborough beach, the bailiff turned left along a track that followed the edge of the low cliffs that formed Warren Point, the promontory opposite Burgh Island. Sheep scampered out of the way as they turned the corner above the estuary, where William Vado led them down a gully out on to the beach.

The firm sand stretched for many hundreds of yards, both over to the island and far across the river to sand dunes on the other side of the estuary, towards Thurlestone, named after the huge perforated rock pillar on the shore. The tide was coming in, but the surf was still far off, a long way short of the wreck, which lay away to their left. As they crossed the wide beach, de Wolfe noticed the imprints of bare feet running ahead of them, and soon they were met by a ragged old man, swathed in an uncured cow-hide, and a boy of about twelve, shivering in a threadbare tunic.

'This is the pair I left on guard,' explained the bailiff, though what such a frail-looking couple could do against a determined band of pillagers was beyond John's understanding.

'Haven't seen a soul, William,' said the old man in a quavering voice. 'Naught but a couple of tide fishermen going across to Bantham strand.'

They walked up to the beached vessel and circled it as it lay on its side on the sand. There was a line of seaweed on the beach just above it, showing the limit of the high tide. A typical trading cog, it was about forty feet long and had the general shape of a Norse long boat, but broader, with a high free board and almost vertical stem- and sternposts. It was half decked, there being no planking over the central section of the hull, which was used for carrying cargo. Thomas, the only literate one among them, read out the name chiseled into the upper strake next to the stem-post.

'Mary and Child Jesus,' he intoned reverently, crossing himself again. 'It's Thorgils' boat right enough.'

As they had just seen the ship-master's body lying in Ringmore church, this confirmation seemed superfluous, but John let it pass. He turned to Gwyn, as the authority on seafaring matters.

'What's to be done about this? Is it a total wreck?'

The Cornishman pulled at the long, drooping ends of his ginger moustache as an aid to thought. 'She's sound enough at the moment, until the rising tides throw her on to those rocks.' He indicated the jagged reefs at the foot of the low cliff, fifty paces away. Advancing right up to the deck of the ship, he inspected the damage before continuing. 'The hull is not breached, so she should float if she was upright.'

'So why is it lying on its side?' snapped Thomas, ever ready to contradict the coroner's officer.

Gwyn pointed to the canvas cover that had been stretched over the single opening that occupied half the deck area abaft the broken mast. It was ripped across the top and the lower part was bulging outward, as objects pressed against the inner side.

'The cargo has shifted, that's why. Whatever they have in the hold has tumbled to one side and capsized her.'

'At least it hasn't been stolen yet!' said de Wolfe, with a touch of sarcasm. He clambered on to the bulwark, which was half buried in wet sand. The deck rose vertically in front of him and, with Gwyn's help, he tore down the tattered canvas. There was a rumble and they both stepped aside hastily as several kegs and boxes rolled out of the hold, having lost the support of the hatch cover.

The bailiff joined the two larger men as they peered into the gloomy cave that formed the entire inside of the hull. Thomas, sniffing miserably at a dew-drop that dangled from the end of his long, pointed nose, cautiously held back with the other men from the village. A few dozen barrels and a collection of crates lay on the lower ribs of the hull. Several kegs had cracked and a smell of wine permeated the air inside.

Gwyn hauled at one of the casks to gauge its weight, then did the same to a crate. 'These are damned heavy. No wonder she keeled over when they shifted!'

'Why should that have happened?' demanded John. 'Thorgils was one of the best ship-masters along the coast.'

'Not if he was dead, he wasn't!' retorted his officer. 'With the crew stabbed or thrown over the side, the vessel would have broached to in the strong winds and waves we've had these past few days, especially this close to the shore.'

He pointed a hand the size of a small ham towards the stern.

'With no one at the steering oar nor men to attend to the sail, she would have been thrown on her beam ends and this cargo would have tumbled to one side, preventing her from righting herself.'

'So what happened to whoever murdered them? Did they drown as well?' asked Thomas, but no one answered him. The coroner had stepped over the coaming of the hatchway, and as his eyes became more accustomed to the gloom he walked along the planking between the low horizontal ribs.

'This isn't only cargo — someone has been living down here,' he rasped.

Gwyn and William Vado followed his pointing finger and saw four sodden mattresses floating in the few inches of water between the ribs. They were no more than sacks filled with straw, some of which was spouting from the torn end of one bag.

'There's some pots and a broken jug there, too,' observed the bailiff. 'Maybe the crew lived down here?'

'No, they would take turns to be on watch and to eat and sleep in that shelter near the stern,' said Gwyn. He indicated the remains of a low structure abaft the hatch, which had been smashed but was still recognisable as a wood-and-canvas hut, little larger than a privy. '

'So Thorgils must have been bringing some passengers back from wherever he had been,' mused de Wolfe. 'I know he took our goods to Harfleur at the mouth of the Seine, but God knows where he went after that.'

There seemed nothing else to be learned from the vessel. There were no bloodstains on the planking, but given the battering the cog had received from tide, wind and rain, this was to be expected, even if at least three men had been slain there.

'What's to be done about the ship, Gwyn?' demanded the coroner. 'Can she be saved?'

The ginger giant made a show of deep thought, pursing his lips under their hairy fringe and staring first at the vessel, then at the line of rocks at the top of the beach.

'Have to be quick — a few more rising tides and she'll be pounded to bits. But if this cargo can be taken out of her, then she'll float upright and could be towed upriver on a flood tide.'

'Why take her up the Avon?' asked the coroner.

'Because then she could be beached somewhere safe a mile or two inland, until she could be remasted and sailed back to Dawlish,' reasoned his officer. 'Or a rough mast could be jury-rigged, enough to get her to Salcombe or even Dartmouth for repairs.'

De Wolfe stood immobile for a long moment, as the glimmerings of a plan came into his mind. The bailiff thought that he now looked more like a black cormorant than a crow, as with his hands on his hips the drape of his dark cloak resembled the outstretched wings of one of those seabirds drying itself on a rock.

'I'm seizing this vessel and her cargo in the name of the King,' announced de Wolfe formally. 'It is part of my duties as coroner to confiscate wrecks of the sea, as well as royal fish — the whale and sturgeon — to the use of our sovereign.' He cleared his throat. 'At least until I hold an inquest … it may be that I will decide to restore the property to the rightful owners.'

'The owner's dead!' objected Thomas, with unusual boldness.

'Then to his heirs!' snapped John. 'And the cargo was not his property, he was just the carrier. I need to discover the true owners.'

He glared at Thomas. 'No doubt you've got writing materials in that bag you always carry,' he grunted, indicating a shapeless pouch that hung from his clerk's shoulder. 'So make a tally of everyone of these casks and boxes. I want them all accounted for when they're carted back.'

'Back to where, Crowner?' asked the bailiff.

'I don't know yet. Enquiries will have to be made among various importers. Thorgils usually dealt with merchants in Exeter or Topsham.'

He turned to Gwyn once again. 'You said this vessel will have to be towed. How can that be brought about?'

'Once she's afloat, given calmer weather like we have today, then a couple of pulling boats can drag her out towards the middle of the estaury. The incoming tide will take her up without effort, as long as the towing boats keep her bow to the middle of the stream.'

De Wolfe spent the next ten minutes giving orders to William Vado and his reeve, using his authority as the King's law officer to impress on them that there would be trouble if his wishes were not carried out. The cargo, which thankfully was only about half a full load, was to be carted back to the tithe barn at Ringmore, and the coroner promised dire consequences if any of it went missing. He was only too well aware of how goods and even the fittings and timbers of a stranded ship could vanish overnight. In fact, one of the purposes of the coroner was to try to stop the depredations of the locals on what was royal booty.

'And what about moving the vessel?' he demanded. 'Can two boats be found, together with some men who have a knowledge of these matters?'

William consulted the old man with the smelly hide cloak, who apparently was a beach scavenger who lived in a hut near the mouth of the river. After a muttered discussion, in accents so thick that John missed half the words, the bailiff turned back, somewhat abashed.

'He says it could be done, but the men would wish for payment, as they would lose their fishing for that day.'

John nodded curtly. 'We'll no doubt be able to find them a few pence for their trouble. They only need to beach the craft in a safe place, then I will send a shipwright down to see what needs to be done.'

As they began walking back along the beach, Gwyn came close to his master and murmured in his ear.

'Why are you concerned with the vessel, Crowner? Thorgils is dead.'

John tapped the side of his curved nose. 'Firstly, I feel I should do what I can for the widow Hilda. That vessel is worth nothing to her smashed on the rocks.'

'I thought the coroner had to sell salvaged wrecks for the benefit of the King's treasury?' grunted his officer. He was well aware of the long history of John and Hilda and wondered what the coroner was planning.

'It's up to the coroner and his jury. As with deodands, there is a discretion to give some or all of the value to the widow or surviving relatives.' He was referring to the object that caused a death, such as a sword, a cart or even a mill-wheel. Normally this 'deodand' was confiscated for the Crown, but its value could be given to the dependants, especially if the dead victim was the breadwinner and his demise had caused hardship to the family. But Gwyn was still curious about the coroner's motives.

'D'you think Hilda would want to keep on Thorgils' seafaring business? She will be a comfortable widow anyway, with that fine house in Dawlish and no doubt quite a few pounds sitting in his treasure chest.'

John was quite ready to talk about his plans with his trusted companion of more than twenty years.

'It occurs to me that as Thorgils carried abroad almost all the goods from my enterprise with Hugh de Relaga, it might be more sensible for us to run the vessel ourselves. When she has overcome her grief, I will put it to Hilda that she could enter our partnership, as a passive member. We could have the use of the Mary and Child Jesus and she could share in the profits.'

As they trudged across the sands, Gwyn gave a broad smile that was almost a leer. 'You must like living dangerously, Crowner, to take as a partner such a lovely woman, when you have two other ladies in Exeter who are only too well aware of your partiality for her.'

'This would be purely a business arrangement, man!' he snapped. 'Where's the harm in that?'

'None, though I suppose you will need to go to Dawlish quite often to discuss that business,' replied Gwyn, with an innocent expression that did not fool his master.

Thomas, who had been limping behind listening to this exchange, piped up with a practical question. 'Beg pardon, Crowner, but you are no ship-master! How will you manage such a venture, which is so foreign to your nature as a soldier and a knight?'

'Pah! I'll leave that side of the matter to Hugh de Relaga. He can appoint one of his clerks to run the business or find some former shipman to advise him. If the portreeve thinks that he can make more profit, he'll find a way, never fear!'

As they were nearing the bottom of the gully, their conversation lapsed, but privately Gwyn was still worried. He feared that John's proposed intimacy with Hilda, even if allegedly only commercial, would be ill received by certain ladies in Exeter. He knew that de Wolfe's youthful romance with the blonde Saxon and his irregular adultery with her over the succeeding years, was more than just casual lust. The Cornishman cared nothing for any problems with the coroner's wife Matilda, with whom Gwyn shared a virulent mutual dislike — but he was concerned about anything that might cause another rift between the coroner and Nesta, the landlady of the Bush Inn.

His anxious ruminations were suddenly interrupted by shouting from behind them, coming from the direction of the river, where it fanned out across the sand in its last rush towards the sea. The old flotsam-raker stopped and stared in that direction. 'It's one of the beach fishers,' he said in a quavering voice. 'But there's a packhorse and some other men coming up behind him.'

The bailiff and his manor-reeve began walking towards the man who was hollering and waving his arms to attract their attention. A beach fisher was one of those shore-dwelling folk who scratched a living by catching crabs in the rocks and by pegging out baited lines at low tide, following the next ebb back to retrieve any fish that might have been hooked. The coroner's trio waited for the men to approach and saw that the last pair were leading a thin packhorse across the shallow delta of the river.

'There's something strapped across its back,' observed Gwyn, shading his eyes from the glare of the weak sun on the sea. 'It looks like another body.'

Minutes later, this was confirmed, as when the group arrived they saw a limp shape draped over the sumpter horse's bare back, held on by a rope tied around the beast's belly. William Vado came up and repeated what he had just heard from the other men.

'Crowner, these are fishermen from Bantham, just across the river. On Monday, they found this young man washed up on the beach, still alive, but near to death.' Gwyn gently lifted up the head of the corpse, which had been drooping face down against the rough hide of the pony.

'Little more than a lad, by the looks of him. Dressed like a seaman, the same as the others.'

'Must be the missing one from the crew,' suggested Osbert the reeve. The compassionate Thomas began shriving the dead boy in murmured Latin, repeatedly making the sign of the Cross on himself as if he were in a cathedral quire, not shivering on a wintry beach.

'He was still alive when you found him?' demanded de Wolfe. 'Did he say what had happened?'

One of the fishermen, the one leading the pony, shook his head.

'The poor lad died on us within a couple of hours. He was half drowned when we found him on the beach, then he began retching and gasping.'

'We took him to our hut on the Ham, where we had a fire and warmed him up, intending to take him back to the village,' said the other man, a gaunt figure with a hacking cough that suggested advanced phthisis. 'But he never made it. We were going to bury him above the high-water mark, as is done with the corpses of most washed-up shipmen, but then yesterday we heard that there had been others found over here, so we thought we'd better bring him across.'

'Did he get his wits back at all before he died?' asked Gwyn.

The haggard fisherman looked at his mate first, then shrugged.

'Nothing that made sense. He came round a bit and mumbled, but old Joel said the only word he could make out sounded like "Saracens".'

John sighed at the obtuse way of speaking of these rural folk.

'Who's Joel, for God's sake?' he demanded.

The man pointed up to the top of Burgh Island. 'He's a hermit who lives up there in the stone cell of St Michael. A bit crazy, but useful, as he acts as our huer, spotting shoals of pilchard and herring for us.'

'If the boy said it was Saracens, perhaps the vessel was attacked by Barbary pirates?' suggested Thomas. 'Remember what happened at Lynmouth last year, when that galley appeared? They were Turks or some brigands from beyond Gibraltar.'

It was true, conceded de Wolfe, that both the Channel coast and the Severn Sea were visited by these swift rowing vessels filled with bloodthirsty villains, not only from Moorish Spain but from as far away as North Africa or the Levant. Though the distances were great, they seemed to have no difficulty in reaching these islands, where abundant trading ships and coastal villages offered rich pickings. Some even set up camps on islands such as Lundy or along the coast of southern Wales.

'Has this young fellow been injured in any way, like the others?' he demanded, waving a hand at the lifeless form slumped across the packhorse.

'Not that we could see, sir,' said the first fisherman. 'He died of having his tubes and lights filled with sea water and sand.'

His emaciated companion gave him an uneasy glance once again.

'There was one other thing, my lord,' he muttered, playing safe with John's rank. 'The same day, when we went to attend to our fishing lines at Aymer Cove, a mile or so up the coast, we found a curragh.'

A curragh was a kind of elongated coracle, a light boat large enough to hold six men. It was made of canvas daubed with pitch, stretched over a frame of hazel withies.

'Every cog carries a curragh, lashed upside down on its deck,' said Gwyn. 'It's used for getting ashore when the vessel can't come against a wharf — or even as a life-saver if she sinks.'

'No doubt it was washed off the Mary when she lost her crew and was capsized,' said John.

Both fishermen shook their heads emphatically. 'Not so, sir! The boat was undamaged and had been dragged up above the tide-line,' said the thin man.

'There was a keel mark in the sand where it had been pulled up,' confirmed the other fellow. 'And there were two paddles left inside. Someone had landed there, no doubt of that.'

'It may be nothing to do with the Mary,' objected Thomas stubbornly. 'If this poor lad mentioned "Saracens", surely that means it was attacked by pirates.'

'Was the curragh one you recognised?' asked Gwyn. The sick-looking local shook his head. 'We know every boat for ten miles along this coast. This was a different style from the few we fishermen build, it was the sort that trading vessels carry.'

De Wolfe rubbed his bristly face, now black with four days' stubble since his last shave. 'So it seems that someone came ashore — and there's nowhere they could have come from other than a ship, unless it was St Brendan himself!'

His allusion to the Irish monk who centuries before had allegedly explored the deep ocean in a curragh was lost on these untutored folk.

'And the only ship around here is stranded on this very beach — and its boat is missing!' said Gwyn with morbid satisfaction. 'Too much of a coincidence not to think that the killers used the curragh to get ashore.'

'But why, for God's sake?' demanded de Wolfe. 'Why slay a few poor shipmen and let the vessel become wrecked. It wasn't even for the cargo, for that didn't amount to much — and anyway, it's still in the vessel.'

No one had an answer for him, and after he had made a quick check of the young sailor's body, the fishermen set off with the packhorse to deliver the corpse to the church, where it could lay with the other victims. John then discussed with the bailiff and reeve how best to manage the removal of the cargo and get the stranded cog towed to shelter. After the promise of a small reward, the fishermen and the crabber agreed to help and Osbert the reeve was dispatched upriver to negotiate for a couple of pulling-boats and the men to handle them, so that the Mary could be hauled off on the following day's tide, while the weather still held calm.

Then they set off after the pony with its unhappy burden, and before mid-morning were back in Ringmore, where they thankfully warmed themselves again in the hall of the manor-house and ate a more substantial breakfast of bread, sea-fish, eggs and fat bacon, before the next stage in their legal proceedings.