The Grim Reaper

CHAPTER TWO

Half an hour later, the three men climbed Castle Hill, which led up from the eastern end of the high street to Rougemont. This was the local name for the fortress of red stone built by the Conqueror at the highest point of the city, in the north-east angle of the old Roman walls.

The coroner and his officer strode energetically across the short drawbridge over the dry moat, while the clerk limped despondently behind. Once under the raised portcullis of the tall gatehouse, they turned left into the guardroom and climbed a narrow staircase in the thickness of the wall to the topmost floor, where de Wolfe had his office. This was the smallest and most uncomfortable chamber that his brother-in-law, Sir Richard de Revelle, the sheriff, had been able to find for him. It was still early, less than two hours after a May dawn, but as usual Gwyn was ready to eat. Though John was himself a good trencherman, his appetite paled into insignificance alongside that of his officer, who needed to stoke his huge body at frequent intervals.

This morning, with a halved penny from the coroner, Gwyn had bought three meat pies, a loaf of barley bread and a chunk of hard cheese from the stalls on their way back from Southgate Street. Now he spread these on the coroner’s trestle table, pushing aside some parchment rolls of recent inquests as he did so. A bench and two stools made up the whole furniture of the bare chamber, which had two slit embrasures looking down on Exeter. The doorway at the head of the stairway was hung with sacking to block some of the draughts.

By the time Thomas de Peyne entered, the other two were working at the food, washing it down with rough cider that Gwyn produced from a gallon crock that stood in a corner. The sad-looking clerk refused the pie Gwyn pushed towards him and contented himself with a slice of bread and a pottery cup half filled with cider. While the jaws of the other pair champed rhythmically, Thomas sat on his stool and stared glumly at the rough boards of the table, his lips working in some silent conversation with himself.

Gwyn broke the rejected pie in two and gave half to his master. There was a further delay until the last of the food had been washed down with the acidulous cider, then after a final belch, de Wolfe got back to business. He turned his dark, glowering face towards his clerk. ‘Now then, Thomas, explain to me again what you meant about that message — from the beginning.’

Rousing himself from his reverie, the former priest fumbled in the brown leather shoulder bag that held his writing materials and came out with the ragged scrap of parchment. Though John could now write his name and read a few simple sentences in Latin, anything more than this was meaningless to him and he waited for his clerk to explain.

‘As I thought, the writing is a direct quotation from the middle of St Mark’s Gospel,’ said Thomas quietly.

De Wolfe nodded, but Gwyn was mystified. ‘So what does that tell us — the name of the killer?’

For answer, Thomas again burrowed in his bag and brought out his most prized possession, a leatherbound manuscript Vulgate, given to him by his father when he was ordained, long before his shameful ejection from the Church. He turned over the pages reverently until he found the place he wanted. ‘I was right, my memory didn’t play false,’ he exclaimed, with a momentary return of his old enthusiasm.

Gwyn groaned. ‘Have we got to listen to a damned sermon now?’ he demanded.

De Wolfe was well aware of the Cornishman’s antipathy to religion, though even after twenty years as a close companion, he had never discovered the cause of Gwyn’s phobia for the Church.

Thomas ignored the interruption and began to read from the Gospel, translating the Latin as he went. ‘ “And Jesus went into the temple and began to cast out them that sold and bought and overthrew the tables of the money-changers.”’ He closed the book and looked up at de Wolfe. ‘A most appropriate text in the circumstances, Crowner.’

Gwyn snorted. ‘The Jew was a money-lender, not a money-changer. And how does it help us to catch the killer?’

John was more appreciative of his clerk’s acumen. ‘It’s near enough — and the table was overturned. Well done, Thomas.’

The little man’s depression lifted a little: praise was rare from his master’s lips, which made it all the more welcome when it came. ‘As for being in the temple, that house does belong to the cathedral Chapter,’ he said. ‘It opens into the cathedral precinct at the back, which is near enough to having a money-trader and usurer on ecclesiastical premises.’

Gwyn drank deeply and wiped cider from his moustache with the back of his hand. ‘Which tells us nothing about who did it,’ he objected.

De Wolfe shook his head. ‘You’re wrong. It tells us that the killer could read and write, and that he knew his Bible. Which strongly suggests a priest.’

Thomas nodded in agreement. ‘And perhaps a senior cleric, for some of the ignorant parish priests can’t put two words together and know as much about the scriptures as this hairy monster here.’ He dodged a playful swipe from the Cornishman.

De Wolfe’s brooding face stared ruminatively through the nearest window slit. ‘But why would he want to leave such a sign behind him? And why did he want to kill the old fellow? It certainly wasn’t a robbery.’

‘Perhaps if he owed a lot of money to the Jew, it was a way to avoid repayment,’ suggested Thomas, ‘and the interest on the loan, which from that account book looked as if it was more than a fifth of its value per year.’

Gwyn whistled. ‘At that rate of usury, I’d be tempted to kill, too.’

The clerk snorted. ‘Some lenders charge much more than that,’ Thomas averred. ‘I’ve heard of as much as sixty pence in the pound — and not all from Jews, either.’

‘I thought all moneylenders were Jews,’ grunted the Cornishman. ‘That’s all they can do, isn’t it, for they are banned from other trades? And doesn’t the Church forbid Christians to become usurers?’

The coroner shook his head. ‘The Templars are probably the biggest moneylenders in Christendom — though mostly on a grand scale to kings and princes. And there are some Englishmen, too. There was William Cade in old King Henry’s time, and we still have Gervase of Southampton.’

Thomas was mumbling something under his breath and Gwyn grabbed the back of his collar, lifting him from his stool. ‘What are you saying, dwarf?’

Shaking himself free, the clerk snapped indignantly, ‘I was quoting the Bible again — Deuteronomy this time.’

‘And how does that help us solve a murder?’ chaffed the Cornishman.

‘It shows that he wasn’t killed by a relative or even another Jew — the Old Testament says, “Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury, but unto thy brother thou shalt not.”’

‘Well, no one’s suggesting that he was killed by a relative, fool!’ Gwyn rumbled.

De Wolfe had grown impatient at this bickering between his helpers. ‘Come, now, both of you, the man was killed during the night, so with the city gates shut, it has to have been someone in the city. And Thomas is right. It seems likely that some priest is at the bottom of this, with his writing and his knowledge of scripture.’

As an aid to thought Gwyn tugged at the ends of his drooping moustache. ‘So we need a clerk who is either a crazed killer or who hates Jews or who owes money to one.’

‘Plenty of the last two groups about — and senior priests are often borrowing money,’ observed Thomas. ‘But why leave behind a clue?’

The coroner eyed him piercingly. ‘You know all the priests in Exeter — is there a mad one among them?’

Thomas shrugged his hunched shoulder higher than usual. ‘There’s a few queer ones, to be sure, but I’d be hard put to say that one was a murderer.’

De Wolfe hauled himself to his feet and leaned his fists on the table, like some great black eagle. ‘We won’t discover anything by sitting here, that’s for sure. I’m off to tell the damned sheriff what’s happened, not that he’ll be too concerned about it. Gwyn, I want that inquest organised by the time the bell rings for High Mass.’ He flung his cloak loosely across his shoulders, stumped down from the chamber and walked across the inner ward of the castle towards the keep, a two-storeyed block built against the further curtain wall. The ground had dried out after a long, wet winter and, as he walked, his feet kicked up red dust mixed with animal droppings.

The castle ward was a cross between a military camp, a farmyard and a village, with huts and lean-to shelters all around the inside of the walls, housing families, armourers, carts, stables and all the paraphernalia of a castle in time of peace. There had not been an arrow fired or a sword clashed in anger here for half a century, since the civil war in the time of Stephen and Matilda. The castle was now mainly an administrative centre for the governance of the county of Devon, under its sheriff, Sir Richard de Revelle, the bane of John’s life.

The previous year, de Revelle had almost come to grief on a charge of treachery, for supporting the rebellious cause of Prince John, younger brother of the monarch, Richard the Lionheart. De Wolfe, a passionately loyal supporter of the King, had had it in his power to ruin the sheriff — perhaps even have him hanged — but the intercession of Matilda on her brother’s behalf had saved him. Yet de Revelle was still on probation for good behaviour and he resented John’s hold over him rather than feeling gratitude to him for saving his neck.

But however much the coroner despised the sheriff, he was still the King’s representative in the shire of Devon, responsible for law and order as well as collecting taxes. As county coroner, de Wolfe was obliged to keep him informed of serious crimes within their jurisdiction.

The hunched figure swept across the castle compound, brushing aside squawking geese, dogs and urchins from the garrison families, and skirting plodding ox-carts laden with hay for the soldier’s horses or blocks of stone for the endless repairs to the high walls.

He clattered up the wooden steps to the first-floor entrance of the keep and went into the main hall, a large chamber roofed by smoke-darkened beams and lit by high unglazed slit windows. Along with eating and drinking, much of the business of running the county was conducted here, between harassed clerks, merchants, lawyers, soldiers and tax collectors.

A small side door guarded by a bored man-at-arms led to the sheriff’s quarters. The coroner gave a perfunctory nod to the man and marched through into an outer chamber that served as de Revelle’s office; his dining room and bedchamber were beyond an inner door.

His brother-in-law was seated behind a trestle table covered with parchment rolls. Richard was a dapper man, with wavy brown hair and a neat, pointed beard. Always fastidious in dress, he wore a showy green tunic with elaborate gold embroidery around the neck. A darker green pelisse of heavy wool edged with brown fur was draped over the back of his chair.

A bald-headed scribe sat at one corner, scribbling furiously as the sheriff barked at him. On a small folding table near one of the two narrow window embrasures, another clerk wielded a pen over what seemed to be long lists of accounts.

De Revelle looked up impatiently at the visitor. ‘It’s you, John,’ he growled, his tone emphasising that the visitor was far from welcome. ‘The Justices are due next week and I’ve got to get all these documents ready for them. I hope you’re not going to interrupt me.’

Ignoring the rudeness, de Wolfe perched himself on a corner of the table, making it creak ominously. ‘You’re not the only one who has to appear before the King’s judges, Richard. I was appointed for the very purpose of presenting cases to them, remember?’

‘Bloody nonsense!’ muttered the sheriff. ‘We managed very well before this new-fangled idea of having coroners.’

De Wolfe sighed, but refused to rise to the bait. Last autumn, Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury and K ing Richard’s chief minister, had appointed knights in every county as coroners, partly to keep an eye on the sheriffs, who were notorious for lining their own purses at the expense of the Royal Exchequer. Richard de Revelle was no exception: he had been up to all kinds of trickery and embezzlement and now strongly resented having John’s eagle eye upon him.

‘We complained long enough about the delay in the Eyre getting to Devon, Richard, so we can’t complain now that it’s actually coming.’

The sheriff nodded reluctantly. ‘At least we can clear the prison — hang a few people and get them out of the way.’ He shuffled his parchments impatiently. ‘Did you come just to talk about the Eyre?’

De Wolfe ran his hands over his long hair. ‘I came to tell you there’s been a strange killing in the city overnight — Aaron, the Jewish moneylender.’

The sheriff managed to look supremely uninterested. ‘Never heard of him,’ he said. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because I think a priest killed him. And the death was on cathedral property.’

Richard de Revelle scowled and tapped his fingers on the table in irritation. ‘Then surely this is a matter for the bishop or his Chapter,’ he snapped impatiently.

De Wolfe shook his head. ‘In matters of murder and violence, you know well enough that Henry Marshal has handed his jurisdiction to us,’ he said evenly. He explained about the biblical text and the fact that someone who could read and write must have been the culprit.

His brother-in-law frowned and pointedly picked up a parchment roll. ‘Then you must look for a mad priest, John,’ he said offhandedly. ‘Was there no hue and cry raised?’

‘What was the point? His body was found almost stone cold this morning so it happened during the night.’

‘The bishop has his proctors patrolling the precinct and the Portreeves have their constables on the streets. What do you expect me to do about it? I thought you and your inquests were meant to ferret out these matters,’ de Revelle snapped.

The coroner sighed again and got up to leave. He could see that his brother-in-law had not the slightest interest in this particular item of law-enforcement, for which the sheriff was ultimately responsible in every county. He made one last effort as he made for the door. ‘This is no ordinary killing, Richard. A priest must surely be involved and I feel in my bones that we haven’t heard the last of him.’

De Revelle looked up at him, his cold eyes signalling his dislike. ‘John, if it’s a mad priest you’re seeking, you needn’t look further than your own clerk. I hear he tried to kill himself the other day, but maybe he’s turned his attention to others.’

De Wolfe growled in his throat and slammed the door as he went out.