The Manor of Death

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

When John went to the castle gaol next morning, he found the new prisoners alive, but only just, as far as one was concerned. The man with the chest wound was gasping for breath, and the hole between his ribs where a sword had entered was bubbling a mixture of blood and air at every laboured movement of his chest. Though he was inevitably going to be hanged, John could not see him suffer this much, especially lying in a filthy cell.

The prison was in the undercroft, partly below ground so that the main floor of the keep was raised above it for purposes of defence. It was a dank, dark cavern, the arches vaulting the roof green with mould. Half the place was for rough storage, divided from the other part by a rusted iron grille, in which was a gate that led to a dozen foul cells. They held only a stone slab for a bed and a dirty bucket on the rat-infested straw that covered the earthen floor.

When Gwyn and Thomas accompanied the coroner to the gaol, Stigand opened up the gate for them and waddled ahead to unlock the cell. He wore a filthy tunic, covered by a long leather apron spattered with stains, some of which appeared to be dried blood.

'He'll be dead by morning, Crowner,' he advised confidently as he threw open the blackened door to reveal the prisoner lying on the slab. He was panting for breath and his. lips were almost violet in colour. 'A punctured lung, no doubt about it,' he added with the confidence of a physician.

John tried to speak to the dying man, but he was unresponsive.

'You'll get nothing from him in this world, sir,' grunted the gaoler. 'But the other two should last until they swing.'

John, who like everyone else loathed Stigand, scowled at him. 'Nevertheless, I'll get Brother Saulf up here to look at him and if he so recommends we'll have him carried down to St John's. Now, let's have a look at the others.'

He left the cell and went next door where Martin Rof was sitting on his slab, contemplating the insect life that crawled in the dirty straw. He had rags wrapped around his arm but seemed alert and truculent.

'It's the bloody Crowner, by Christ! I need you visiting me like a dose of the pox!'

Gwyn gave him a clout across the ear which knocked him sideways on to his bed. 'Keep a civil tongue in your head when talking to a king's officer, damn you!' he growled.

The shipmaster pulled himself up and glowered at the men in his cell. 'My tongue has nothing more to say to him,' he sneered.

De Wolfe towered over him, though Gwyn stood ready to intervene if the man became violent. 'You're going to hang, so you may as well tell me. Who else is involved in your pirate venture? Is the owner of the vessel in on this?'

'Sod off! I'll not betray my friends,' answered Rof defiantly.

'We'll find out soon enough, whether you tell us or not. I'm just curious as to whether your master, Robert de Helion, was party to the misuse of his cog?'

This seemed to touch a sensitive chord. 'He had nothing to do with it. He's a good man, so don't go persecuting him.'

John was satisfied with the reply, in that if he could confirm that the ship owner was ignorant of the situation, then this agent Henry Crik must be implicated. He put this to Martin Rof, but got only a mouthful of abuse in response. The same happened when he tried to discover if the bailiff and the portreeve were part of the criminal conspiracy in Axmouth.

'What about the prior's man, this Brother Absalom?'

Rof raised a dirty, blood-streaked face, his dishevelled dark hair sprouting stalks of straw from the floor. 'That slimy toad? I wouldn't know, but if he was I'll bet the prior is getting a cut!'

He refused to answer anything else, apart from offering a string of blasphemies, and for the time being John gave up his questioning.

'Perhaps a few days in that hellhole will soften him up,' suggested Gwyn as they moved to the next dismal room, where the young man with the neck injury was curled upon his stone bench, sobbing into his hands. A soiled cloth was wound beneath his chin, bloodstained at the edges. As soon as Stigand turned the rusty key, he pulled himself up, then sank to his knees in front of John as the coroner entered the cell.

'Mercy, sir, save me! I don't want to hang!' he sobbed. 'I didn't want to be a pirate; I was just part of the crew. I had no choice!'

'You were one of the first over the rail, waving your sword!' snapped de Wolfe. 'You didn't seem so reluctant then, did you?'

The young man raised his terrified face to the coroner, his hands held up clenched in supplication. 'I'll turn approver, sir; I'll testify against the others!'

'We've got to catch the buggers first,' grunted Gwyn practically.

'And I don't think we need an approver, thank you,' added John. 'We've plenty of eyewitnesses, including myself.'

The sailor burst into tears and sank to the floor, face buried in the filthy 'straw.

'But you can tell me who onshore was involved, as your captain seems to have lost the power of speech in that regard!'

The man looked up with a flicker of hope in his face, and John felt somewhat false, as he knew that whatever he was told this lad would inevitably be pushed off a gallows ladder with a rope around his injured neck.

'What do you want to know, sir?' he gabbled.

'When pillaged goods were taken back to Axmouth, who dealt with them?'

'They were unloaded and put in the warehouses, sir, the same as any other cargo.'

'But did anyone come to check what was there? The bailiff or the portreeve?'

The sailor grimaced with pain as he tried to shake his head. 'Never saw either of them down on the quay. Only Henry, the agent for some noble merchant here in Exeter — and of course John Capie, he was always hanging around.'

It was soon apparent that the seaman knew nothing more of use and they left, with John promising to ask the monk from the hospital to look at his neck when he came to see the dying man. With the lad's plaintive supplications following them down to the gate, de Wolfe and Gwyn left the prison, leaving Thomas behind to write down the confession that the young man had made, especially his oath that Martin Rof had strangled Simon Makerel.

'Where are we going now?' asked Gwyn as they strode out of the castle down into the quieter lanes near St John's Hospital.

'Someone had better tell Robert de Helion that he's lost a ship from his fleet!' said John. 'And see what he has to say about his agent.'

The august, rather supercilious merchant-knight was aghast when John informed him that one of his cogs had been involved in piracy and was now in the hands of criminals, but God knows where!

John was inclined to think that his shock and indignation were genuine, unless he was as good an actor as he was a businessman.

'Are you saying that I may have lost my vessel altogether?' he cried in distress. 'That cog cost me five hundred marks to have built!'

John shrugged; he had more pressing problems than the price of a rich man's property.

'She may turn up, Sir Robert — who knows? The crew may abandon the vessel and leave her on some beach when they flee to become outlaws. Or perhaps they will sail to Brittany or Flanders and try to sell her there,' he added mischievously.

De Helion groaned. 'That idiot Henry Crik, he should have known that something like this might happen. I'll have the miserable fool flayed alive!'

'It seems likely that your agent was party to this evil trade,' said the coroner. 'I presume you had no suspicions of his involvement?'

There was a veiled hint here that de Helion himself might not be lily white, and he rose to the bait in a temper. 'Sir John, I trust you are not suggesting that I have any complicity in this? I assure you that there has not been the slightest breath of corruption coming from Axmouth, which is but a small part of my commercial interests. The Tiger's voyages have always turned in a reasonable profit, according to the records that Crik brings to my clerks here.'

He shouted for his chief clerk, and soon a bent elderly man hobbled in, looking too threadbare to have made any money from piracy. His master interrogated him about the accounts and the records relating to Axmouth, but the cowed old fellow could say nothing but that everything had always seemed to be in order.

'Yet if the documents were falsified, would you be any the wiser?' asked John. 'The Tiger no doubt spent most of her time on legitimate voyages — but if she returned earlier than expected, who was to know in Exeter that she might make an extra short foray out into the Channel to seize a passing ship?'

De Helion huffed and puffed but had to admit that this was a possibility. He even added that The Tiger might have come across a victim when returning from a normal voyage, especially if she was coming home light or with only a part-cargo, so that there was still room in her hold for pillaged goods.

'That swine Martin Rof is the man behind all this!' he raved. 'I met him but once, when I took him into my service as a shipmaster, and I took a dislike to him then. But I admit that I have had no complaints about his seamanship — indeed, he seems to have made a very successful pirate!'

Neither the merchant nor his chief clerk seemed to know where Henry Crik was at that moment, so soon the coroner left him still bellowing about the loss of his ship and ordering his old clerk to send messengers out along the southern coast in both directions, to see if she had turned up anywhere.

'Where are we going to seek this fellow Crik?' asked Gwyn as they walked back to Rougemont. 'He must surely be the key to this mystery.'

'The only mystery is who is involved in this scandal and who is not!' replied de Wolfe. 'De Helion was trying to include the Prior of Loders in the conspiracy, but I doubt that is the case.'

'I wouldn't trust any bloody priest,' muttered the Cornishman, half to himself, but aloud he said 'Do you think Axmouth have heard of the loss of their Tiger, for she can never go back there, unless de Helion finds her abandoned somewhere.'

'I doubt the news has travelled that fast yet, unless someone guessed why the St Radegund came back to harbour the same day that she left,' answered de Wolfe. 'But no doubt someone will take the news to Axmouth within a day or two. The men-at-arms are bound to boast of their success in the alehouses here, so carters and pedlars are sure to spread the news far and wide.'

'What will that bailiff and portreeve do about it when they hear?' mused Gwyn. 'D'you think they'll make a run for it, if they have been involved?'

The coroner pondered this as he stalked alongside his officer across High Street and up the track that led into the outer ward of the castle. 'I doubt it. Those who are guilty will brazen it out for as long as they can. Otherwise, they can only turn outlaw, and I can't see them doing that readily, after the nice comfortable life they've had stealing so much from the king and the merchants.'

Back in their upper chamber in the gatehouse, they found Thomas at his usual task of neatly scribing the various parchment rolls that the coroner would have to present to the Justices in Eyre, when they eventually came to Exeter. As they sat down to their ritual second breakfast of bread, cheese, ale and Thomas's cider, de Wolfe fretted over what should be done next.

'We cannot delay too long in getting the sheriff's posse down to Axmouth. Even though I suspect they will play the innocent and blame everything on Martin Rof and his crew, one of them will surely break and admit to something.'

'We'll get nothing from that Rof fellow unless we let Stigand loose on, him with a branding iron — or make him submit to the Ordeal,' boomed Gwyn.

Thomas crossed himself, as he scorned such a barbaric attitude. 'The Church is becoming more concerned about the correctness of the Ordeal,' he said primly. 'The Holy Father is likely to forbid it before long, on the grounds that it smacks of unchristian paganism and magic.'

His ginger friend hooted with scorn. 'Not that it's painful, cruel and humiliating, eh? Just that it's unchristian! '

John raised a hand to stop their frequent bickering. 'At least we have the seaman's confession that clears up the death of that poor lad Simon. Now, I can complete the inquest on him, and Martin Rof will hang for the crime in due course. But we have nothing more to point to how the Keeper or that pedlar came to their deaths.'

'It will all come together in the end,' said Thomas hopefully. 'Someone will speak unwisely out of fear or conscience.'

After dictating some more case summaries to Thomas, de Wolfe tried again to study his lessons in reading and writing, which recently he had sadly neglected. Then he ate his dinner in the hall of the keep, and the afternoon was spent discussing the new situation with Henry de Furnellis and Ralph Morin and organising another military expedition to Axmouth the next day. The sheriff felt that action was needed without delay, hopefully before the news of The Tiger's rout arrived in the village. Henry was afraid that either the culprits would run or at least destroy any remaining evidence of their activities. 'And they'll have a chance to dream up some excuses, if we leave it too long,' he added.

The constable went off to organise another troop of soldiers, as to call the force a 'posse' was not quite accurate, for a posse comitatus was a band of freemen conscripted by the sheriff 'to maintain the peace of the county and to pursue felons'. They agreed to ride out at dawn next day, led by the sheriff and coroner, hoping to catch any malefactors unawares.

De Furnellis pointed out that seizing Henry Crik was a priority and, assuming that he dwelt in Exeter, he sent several of his clerks scurrying into the city to discover where he lived. Within an hour one of them was back, reporting that though Crik, a widower, lived in St Mary Arches Lane with a leman, he was not at home. His woman said that he had left in a hurry early that morning but would not tell her where he was going.

'Blast the fellow!' cursed de Wolfe. 'He must have heard about the return of the St Radegund and taken off to Axmouth to warn them.'

When he returned to his house in Martin's Lane, he was struck by the empty feel of the hall, which was not a very welcoming chamber at the best of times. Now, it seemed even more cold and silent and the two vacant monks' chairs that sat near the huge hearth were a pathetic reminder of the state of affairs.

When he went around to the back yard, there was a similar sombre atmosphere, as Lucille's hutch under the solar was deserted and Mary was sitting listlessly in her kitchen-hut, absently stroking Brutus's head. Even the hound seemed melancholy.

The cook-maid raised a doleful face to her master. 'How long is this going to go on, Sir Crowner? she asked listlessly. 'The mistress has gone, the maid has gone, I have almost nothing to occupy me, as you are away half the time and I have no one to feed except myself and the dog. You don't need a house or a maid.'

He bent to kiss her cheek and to try to reassure her that eventually all would turn out well. 'Someone will have to look after me in London, and I'm sure it won't be my wife, whether she comes with me or not. You may depend that once I get settled there I will send for you, Mary. I will keep this house for at least a year, in case I have to return. If Matilda does decide to leave Polsloe, then she may wish to come back to live here.'

Mary brightened at his assurances and busied herself fetching him some of her own-brewed ale and heating up some mutton stew, as his dinner at Rougemont had been an uninspiring platter of tough pork, cabbage and last season's beans. He squatted on a stool to eat and told her of the events of the past two days, to which she listened with rapt attention.

'But if this monster of a shipmaster won't speak, how can you be sure who is guilty and who is innocent?' she asked.

She had touched on the very matter that concerned de Wolfe, and he hoped that the next day would see some breakthrough in that problem.

'The sheriff is pinning his hopes on this agent, Henry Crik,' he replied. 'If the fellow is found in Axmouth, then he has some explaining to do as to why he ran there as soon as he heard of the failure of The Tiger's attack.'

Mary was not so convinced. 'Won't he just say that he was going to the port anyway, in the pursuit of his usual business?'

John finished the last mouthful and washed it down with a draught of ale. 'We'll just have to see what happens tomorrow. For all we know the whole lot may have fled, though I doubt they'll give up so easily.'

'Might they not make a fight of it?' asked Mary, looking worried for John's safety. 'The prosperity of the whole village must depend on the success of the harbour and its trade, so would they not try to protect the men who run it?'

'We're taking a dozen experienced men-at-arms, the same ones who overcame the pirates,' he assured her, but she still looked dubious.

'Even a dozen soldiers would fare badly against a hundred angry villagers armed with scythes and pitchforks!' she said stoutly.

John grinned and hugged her around the shoulders. 'Don't dream up a civil war, Mary! If it eases your concern for me, I'll wear my coat of mail tomorrow — but I draw the line at taking my old shield from the wall!'

Later that evening he walked down towards the Bush, passing through the cathedral Close, where the usual collection of urchins and youths were throwing a ball made of rags bound with cord. A few drunks and beggars slumped between the grave-mounds, but the fine spring evening had also brought out a few families, who were ambling along the main paths, enjoying the fresh air that was a welcome change from the cramped, odorous accommodation that many of the city dwellers had to endure.

When John came out of the Bear Gate passage into Southgate Street, the stall-keepers were packing up their wares as the evening waned. Crossing into the small lanes that led down towards the river, he passed wives gossiping outside their huts and cottages, their shrieking children still playing in the dirt of the road, dodging the occasional handcart or packhorse going down to the quayside through the Watergate. He wondered if he would miss all these familiar scenes when he went to London, until he reminded himself that one town was much like the next, only there would be far more of it in the case of the capital.

When he reached Idle Lane, he also wondered what sort of reception he would get from his mistress, having been away for a day or so. He once again found Nesta in a quiet mood, amiable but somehow distant. She sat with him and listened attentively to his detailed story of the ambush of the pirate ship the previous day and the foray that was planned on Axmouth in the morning. Once again, she cautioned him about his own safety.

'Be careful, John, if you are going with a troop of soldiers to fight!' she warned with a worried look. 'You are not so young as you were and, though I have no doubt about your courage, your eyes may not be so keen and your sword-arm might not be as brisk as they once were.'

He bridled a little at this. 'I downed the pirate captain at my first stroke yesterday!' he protested. 'I am not yet a feeble old man in his dotage — as I could prove to you up in the loft tonight.'

Nesta smiled wanly at him. 'Perhaps not tonight, John. I feel tired and out of sorts this evening. Maybe there is a thunderstorm brewing — it affects me that way.'

John recalled a blue sky free from a single cloud as he walked down to the tavern. This time the moon could not be blamed for her indisposition, and again a niggle of concern slid into his mind. He looked around the crowded taproom, but he saw no sign of the Welsh stonemason.

'Are you perhaps sickening for something, cariad?' he asked in their habitual Welsh.

She shook her head. 'No, John, just a headache and a passing lowering of the spirits.'

De Wolfe recalled that when she had been pregnant the previous year, she had been in a strange state of mind — indeed, it was only Thomas's intervention that had saved her from doing away with herself. John did some rapid calculation in his head and decided that this was unlikely to be the problem now, unless he himself was responsible.

They talked on quietly for a while, and Nesta spoke of the journey they had made some months earlier, when she had accompanied him back to Wales for a short visit. He had been on the king's business but had left her in Gwent to visit her family, whom she had not seen for several years. Now, she spoke longingly of her mother, who lived not many miles from Chepstow, wondering about her health, as she was advancing in years. John was on the point of promising her another such pilgrimage when he realised that soon he would be two hundred miles away in London.

He had still not told Nesta of his new appointment, being held back by some ill-formed fear of her reaction, but now he saw that he could delay no longer. Bolstering his courage, he reached to take her hand.

'Nesta, my love, I have something to tell you. This came about when I was with the king in Normandy.'

She looked at him almost fearfully, her big eyes wide in her heart-shaped face. 'I feel that this is news that will alter our lives, John!', she said. Like the mother she pined for, she was blessed — or perhaps cursed — with a certain clairvoyance, which had led her near mortal trouble in the past.

Still holding her hand, he slowly and clearly told her of the Lionheart's summons to London, an order that could not be disobeyed. 'I must go within a few weeks, cariad, as soon as this Axmouth problem is dealt with. I have sent news of it to Matilda, and she has not replied in any shape or form. So the way is clear for you to come to London with me — it will solve our eternal problem, as we could start afresh in a great city where no one knows or cares about us!'

When he had finished, he wondered if her famous temper, which went with her red hair, would explode over him. He did not know what to expect by way of her reaction. Would it be joy, confusion, hysterics or anger? What ensued was none of these, but a calm appraising look that unnerved him.

'Why did you not tell me this before, John?' she asked, her hazel eyes upon him.

'I lacked the courage until now. But tomorrow, though the danger, is slight, I will again be handling a sword and, as you keep telling me, maybe I am getting too slow to keep out of trouble, so I felt I should unburden myself to you tonight.'

'And what of us? What of me? I have this alehouse, which is my life.'

'You must come to London with me, my love. We have spoken of leaving many times. This is a chance to make a clean break.'

Nesta looked at him dispassionately. 'There is the small matter of your wife, John. Will you just abandon her?'

John made an impatient gesture. 'I have told her what is to happen. She has made no response. It is now up to her to do what she wants.'

'And the Bush? What of my home and my livelihood?'

'We can arrange for someone to run it for a year, until we see what is to happen. I told you, this is for a trial period — for all I know, I will be back here in a twelve-month. '

He half-turned and gripped her by her upper arms. 'Nesta, this is the opportunity we have been waiting for! London is a huge place; no one knows us there. Gwyn and Thomas will be with me, there will be new friends to make, new sights to enjoy! It will be exciting, moving from place to place when the court travels to the country. Sometimes we will be near Wales, and you can visit your family there.'

The mention of Wales caused a shadow to pass over her face, but John was too intent on persuasion to notice. 'All we have meant to each other over these past few years cannot be lost to us now, cariad! But I have no choice but to go where my king commands.'

She was silent for a moment, the colour drained from her face. 'This is a great shock, John. I had not expected anything like this. I must think deeply about what you ask.'

He pulled her gently against his chest, ignoring the covert glances of others in the taproom. 'Nesta, come with me to a new life! It is the chance we have sought for so long.'

She pulled away and sat looking down at her hands folded in her lap. Then she looked up into his eyes. 'Go to your battle tomorrow, John, and may God preserve you. When you come back, I will give you my answer.'

Sir John de Wolfe went to battle soon after dawn reddened the eastern sky. The jingling of harness, the scraping of impatient hooves and the snorting of horses marked the second armed contingent that week to assemble in the inner courtyard. The same men-at-arms who had sailed on the St Radegund were there, plus a few reinforcements. The sheriff felt obliged to accompany them and wore an old and slightly rusted hauberk that had not seen service for a decade, since he had given up campaigning.

John's similar long coat of mail, slit at the back and front for riding, was in better condition, as the previous evening Gwyn had insisted on giving it a rub-down with sand and wet rags. Ralph Morin, who had plenty of manual labour in Rougemont for such tasks, had armour whose links glittered in the morning light. The mounted soldiers, as well as Gwyn, wore thick jerkins of boiled leather, with metal plates on the shoulders — and all wore the usual basin-shaped helmets. The only one with nothing but a faded black robe was Thomas, who rode uneasily in the centre of the troop. He had protested when John ordered him to join the expedition, but the coroner was adamant that he might need someone to write down any confessions that might be made — and promised the very nervous priest that he would be kept well out of any violence until all conflict had finished.

They left at a steady trot in good weather, and even Thomas on his borrowed rounsey managed to keep up with them. They stopped at Sidford to rest the horses and eat their rations, but by noon they had covered the twenty miles to the Axe valley. The last stretch of the journey was down from the bridge over the river at Boshill Cross, upstream of the inland end of the estuary. The troop went more cautiously now, riding in pairs with the sheriff and constable at the head. A couple of furlongs from Axmouth, they kept their promise to Thomas and left him hidden behind a hazel thicket at the side of the track, where he squatted uneasily with his writing bag of parchments, pens and ink beside him. They continued down the road, the wooded slopes of Hawkesdown Hill rising steeply to their left, until the few outer cottages and then the north wall of the village came in sight. The gate was firmly closed, and Henry de Furnellis raised his gloved hand to bring them to a halt a hundred paces away.

'Never seen that shut before,' growled Ralph Morin. 'Is it for our benefit, I wonder?'

'It's hardly Dover Castle!' said the sheriff cynically. 'So what's the point?'

The wall seemed more suited for keeping out livestock than resisting a siege, for it was a dry-stone wall little more than the height of a man, though it ran from the edge of the high ground inland to the edge of the estuary, where piles driven into the mud extended a fence a little way out into the water. The gate was of stout oak, about the same height as the wall and wide enough for a cart to pass through.

'Do we shout, knock or smash it open?' asked Morin. 'They obviously knew we were coming — probably had spies posted on the road.'

'I'll go and look,' volunteered Gwyn, slipping from his saddle.

'Have a care — remember those arrows last week,' warned de Wolfe as his officer ambled towards the gate. The expedition watched as the big Cornishman picked up a rock from the side of the road and used it to pound on the gate. 'God blast you, open this bloody door!' he yelled in a voice that could probably be heard over in Seaton.

There was no response, even after Gwyn had hammered on the unyielding panels a few more times.

Impatiently, the constable nudged his horse's belly to walk it towards the gate, where from his elevated position he could see over the top. The main street stretched before him, houses on either side, with the church and the gate to the quayside in the distance.

'Half the damned village is standing in the road!' he shouted over his shoulder. Turning back, he bellowed over the gate at the few dozen men and a handful of women who were staring at the head that had appeared above the wall.

'The sheriff is here and he commands you in the name of the king to open this gate!'

There was some shuffling and gesturing amongst the throng, who stood some distance away, outside the house of the bailiff. A few defiant shouts were thrown at him, but no one approached to unbar the gate.

'Are they armed?' called de Wolfe, starting to move his own horse up to the barrier.

'A few sticks and cudgels, but nothing more,' said Ralph, wheeling his horse away and coming back to meet the others, who were now moving closer to the gate.

'I'll soon get us in there!' growled Gwyn, spitting on his hands. Reaching up, he seized the top of the gate and with a mighty heave pulled himself up until he could tilt his belly across the top. Though he was a big, heavy man, he had such strength in his arms that he could lift his bulk sufficiently to straddle the top and pull his legs over, to drop to the ground on the other side. There was an outburst of angry shouts from the crowd down the road, but still no one approached.

Gwyn pushed up the long bar from its iron sockets on the back of the gate and threw it aside, then hauled the gate wide open. Led by the sheriff, the troop trotted through and advanced on the throng further down the track.

As they approached, some of them scattered, but others stood their ground and jeered truculently as the king's men bore down on them. John saw that Edward Northcote stood by the fence around his cottage, with Elias Palmer and John Capie by his side. Further away, the old priest, Henry of Cumba, leant on his stick alongside some of the less demonstrative of his parishioners.

'Why have you broken into our village, uninvited?' demanded the bailiff. 'This is Church land. You know well enough that it belongs to the Priory of Loders.'

'It is not Church land, as you call it,' snapped de Furnellis. 'It is a manor ceded to an alien house. Which is irrelevant, anyway, as in murder or treason the king's writ runs everywhere, apart from the temporary respite of sanctuary.'

Before Northcote could argue, the coroner broke in. 'Why did you bar the gate against us? A futile gesture, as you see, but it points towards your guilt before we even ask a single question!'

'Guilt about what?' demanded Northcote.

'Don't play the innocent with me, man,' snapped the sheriff. Henry was getting too old and intolerant to bandy words and came straight to the point. 'You know damned well that The Tiger and her crew were caught red-handed in an act of piracy. Martin Rof is in gaol and will be hanged — he should be hanged twice, once for being a pirate and again for strangling that lad Simon Makerel.'

'What has that to do with me?' shouted Northcote angrily. 'I know nothing of piracy. What Rof or anyone else is up to in secret is their affair, not mine.'

'Tell that to the king's justices when you are arraigned before them,' suggested de Wolfe. 'For I don't believe that anything can happen in Axmouth without your knowledge — and probably your permission.'

As they were speaking, the soldiers had spread out so that they were partly surrounding the villagers, many of whom had already slipped furtively away to their homes.

'You were warned about our coming, no doubt,' snapped the sheriff. 'And you were told of the rout of The Tiger, almost certainly by Henry Crik. Where is he?'

'How should I know? He is Sir Robert de Helion's man, not mine.'

'Right, then we'll do this the hard way,' said de Furnellis grimly. He muttered to the constable and Morin sent Sergeant Gabriel and most of the men-at-arms hurrying off to search every house. There was an outcry from some of the villagers, but they were pushed aside as a wholesale hunt went on in the two-score dwellings of the village, as well as in their storehouses and stables. While this was going on, the bailiff, the silent portreeve and the Customs man Capie were taken into Northcote's house and stood between two soldiers while they were questioned further. Stolidly, they denied all knowledge of any piracy or illegal disposal of pillaged goods, claiming that all the cargo that was landed from every vessel was properly accounted for.

'If Martin Rof was stealing from other ships, then he must have disposed of the cargo at other ports,' said Elias, speaking at last in a quavering voice. 'Maybe Lyme or Dartmouth — they are not particular there where their stuff comes from.'

At that moment there was a scuffle outside and Gabriel entered with two soldiers pushing a couple of men before him. 'We found these hiding in the washhouse behind the portreeve's house,' said the sergeant. The two fugitives were Henry Crik and Brother Absalom, both putting on a great show of indignation, which was cut short by the sheriff.

'Why did you hide yourselves away, eh? What have you got to hide?'

The lay brother from Loders angrily tried to shake off the hand of a trooper who was grasping his arm. 'We fled because we heard that soldiers were descending on the village,' he snarled. 'Knowing of the ways of crude fighting men, we feared for our life and limb!'

'I know nothing of what goes on here. I am a servant of a respectable merchant,' cried the agent.

'Crik, you are a liar and a thief — and possibly a murderer!' said de Wolfe. 'I accuse you of disposing of stolen goods obtained through piracy. I suspect you are one of the main plotters, along with these other men.'

The agent strenuously denied the accusations and defied the coroner to offer any proof.

'What about you, Brother Absalom?' cut in the sheriff. 'As someone who looks after the priory's interests, I fail to see how you could be unaware of what's been going on here.'

The cellarer's man looked sullenly at de Furnellis. 'I am in holy orders and I decline to answer any questions whatsoever. If you have questions, address them to the prior, for I'll say nothing at all, except to deny these scandalous accusations.'

The interrogation continued but was met with total denial by the four men.

John turned to John Capie, who had been skulking in a corner trying to look inconspicuous. 'You, what do you know about any of this?' he growled.

The excise man turned up his hands. 'I told you last time, Crowner, all I do is count what comes in and goes out of the ships' holds. Where it comes from and where it goes is beyond me. My job is just to make tallies and give them to the portreeve.'

The bailiff drew himself up haughtily, having recovered all his considerable confidence. 'Once again, you law officers have unjustifiably disrupted and insulted our village! If you have no further business here, leave us to get on with our labours.'

Henry de Furnellis gave a cynical laugh. 'Yes, we'll be going, when it suits us. And all of you will be going with us, back to the prison in the undercroft of Exeter Castle! If you persist in lying, then you will have to be persuaded. '

There was a hubbub of anguish and protest, especially from Absalom. 'You cannot touch me, I claim Benefit of Clergy. I can say the 'neck verse' to prove my status as a clerk! You have no jurisdiction over me!'

De Wolfe thought that he was probably right, but he decided to turn the screw a little tighter. 'Yes, in the fullness of time you can claim to be tried by your ecclesiastical courts under canon law — though as you belong to a foreign alien order and do not come under the rule of a bishop, even that claim might fail. But you cannot evade my questioning or my accusing you.'

'And if you don't like it, appeal to the Pope!' added de Furnellis mischievously. 'You might get a reply within a year or so!' He turned to leave the house, ordering Morin to place a guard upon the suspects until they were ready to leave for Exeter. Outside, Thomas de Peyne had just arrived, having satisfied himself that a pitched battle was not taking place in the village.

'Is there anything you require of me yet, Crowner?' he asked timidly.

'Unfortunately not, Thomas. These bastards have decided to keep their mouths clamped shut and may need some persuasion to open them.'

The clerk shuddered at the implications and crossed himself nervously. '

'Keep the men, searching until they have covered every inch,' ordered the sheriff. 'I think we had better look again in those warehouses on the quayside that you described to me, John.'

Demanding the keys from Capie, they set off towards the edge of the estuary beyond the church, where two cogs were visible against the bank.

'Had we better mount a guard on those, in case anyone tries to slip away by sea?' asked the constable.

Gwyn grinned and shook his head. 'No need. The tide is out — a vessel would need wheels to get away in the next eight hours!'

One cog was empty, having already discharged her cargo, and the other was half-loaded with wool, so no suspicion attached to either ship. In the warehouses, there was a collection of goods ranging from tuns of wine to bales of Flemish cloth, from cubes of fine Caen stone to baskets of tin ingots. Outside were stacks of trimmed limestone from the nearby quarries at Beer. But without a genuine manifest of what should be present, it was impossible to say whether or not it was all legal.

On the way back to the centre of the village, they met Sergeant Gabriel coming towards them. 'Found something odd in one of the barns, sheriff,' he reported, his grizzled face alight with satisfaction. 'Hidden behind a stack of straw that looked as if it had been piled there deliberately. '

They followed him into the eastern part of Axmouth, where part of the village was tucked into the neck of a small valley cutting up through the hillside. Amongst the crofts and huts were a few barns, in one of which two soldiers stood sentinel over a four-wheeled ox-cart. It had a canvas hood and stood almost totally concealed behind a mound of oat straw that reached nearly to the roof. The drawshaft lay empty on the ground, and there was no sign of the two beasts that would have pulled it.

'Who does this barn belong to?' demanded the sheriff.

Gabriel hurried outside and returned in a moment with an old man he found hiding behind the fence of the nearest house. Pulling him by the scruff of his woollen blouse, he dragged him before the sheriff and coroner.

'Is this place yours?' he barked. 'And what is this wagon doing here?'

The terrified villager immediately disowned both. 'The barn belongs to the manor, sir. Mostly hay, straw and turnips are stored here.'

'Do you store wagons here as well?' demanded the coroner, but the sarcasm was lost on the old fellow.

'It belongs to some of the carters who take the cargoes inland, sir. Nothing to do with me!'

'And where would these carters be now?' boomed Ralph Morin, jabbing his beard almost in the man's face.

'They usually lodge in the tavern, sir. There are a number of them. They come and go, as they are not Axmouth men.'

The constable ordered his sergeant to search the Harbour Inn and if they were not there to seek them in the village. Once out of earshot, Gabriel began muttering that he didn't know how to tell a carter from a wheelwright, but he set his men to find them by some means.

The wagon was empty apart from a single crossbow bolt lying on the floor behind the driving-board. Gwyn picked it up and showed it to de Wolfe, with a quizzical look on his face. John nodded his understanding, but neither could attach any real significance to the find. 'There are crossbows aplenty around the country, Gwyn. This may be nothing to do with the ones that were fired at us.'

When they went outside again, John noticed Thomas in deep conversation with Henry of Cumba, the old parish priest, but they did not approach him and, together with the sheriff and constable, he began walking back to the bailiff's house, annoyed and frustrated that they had been unable to get any confessions from their suspects.

'There seems nothing for it but to drag these bloody men back to Exeter and see if a few days of Stigand's hospitality might loosen their tongues,' observed de Furnellis gloomily.

'What about this blasted monk from Loders?' asked Ralph. 'There'll be hell to pay when his prior finds out we've dragged off one of his staff.'

'I don't give a damn about that,' replied Henry stubbornly. 'This is a task specifically ordered by the Chief Justiciar and with the consent of the king himself, more or less. I've weathered far worse than the anger of some Benedictine.'

As they reached the main track, John became aware of his clerk padding behind him and making some patently false coughing sounds to attract his attention. 'What is it, Thomas? Have you a frog in your throat?'

The priest adopted a conspiratorial manner and came so close that John could see the habitual dewdrop on the tip of his sharp nose. His voice was little more than a whisper. 'Henry the priest has been talking to me, master. I think you should hear what he has to say.'

Henry of Cumba was standing behind Thomas, looking very worried and almost guilty.

'Does he want to confess to being a pirate, too?' demanded John.

'It may well be a confession, but not of the sort you mean, Crowner,' replied the clerk. 'He says he wishes to speak to you and the sheriff, but wants to do so in the sanctity of his own church.'

De Wolfe frowned at this play-acting. 'Can't he just come out with it here?'

Thomas shook his head. 'I think you should indulge him, sir. It might be important.'

The coroner stepped across to where the sheriff was talking to Ralph Morin and Gwyn and told him what his clerk had said. De Furnellis shrugged and agreed to humour the two priests, as there seemed nothing to lose by it.

The constable said that he would go with Gwyn and see if there was any sign of the missing carters. As the tavern was directly opposite the church, they all walked down the village street, leaving the indignant prisoners held in the bailiff's house guarded by half a dozen soldiers.

John, Henry and the two priests turned into the churchyard alongside a double-stone stile, which was used for resting coffins upon before burial. The church of St Michael was a fairly new structure, built about fifty years earlier. It was a substantial building with a nave and chancel, having a squat tower and a striking arched doorway carved in zigzag patterns. The subdued parish priest led the way into the cool nave, which was set with columns on either side. Here, Henry of Cumba spoke for the first time.

'We should all pray to the Almighty for mercy and forgiveness — especially me!' To suit his words, he dropped prone on the floor at the entrance to the chancel, arms spread out as in a crucifixion, and began muttering in Latin into the flagstoned step.

Thomas also fell to his knees and with hands clasped towards the altar began declaiming aloud in Latin. The two law officers bobbed their heads, dropped to one knee and crossed themselves as a token to their faith and waited for the two black-robed figures to climb to their feet.

As with all churches; there were no seats on the packed-earth floor of the nave, but the parish priest led them to the stone ledge that ran around the church, used by the aged and infirm who 'went to the wall' when necessary. They sat in a row and waited to hear what Henry of Cumba had to say.

'I have prayed to God for guidance and His consent — or at least to avoid His wrath,' began the priest.

He fell silent, and Thomas had to prompt him. 'Tell us about Seaton, Henry.'

'When I heard that my fellow priest across the river had felt obliged to tell something of what that poor lad Simon had confessed, I went to see this brother in God. We spoke long and earnestly about the sanctity of the confessional, when the substance concerns the very lives of our flock.'

'Have you learnt something here about the crimes that have been perpetrated?' grated the sheriff, somewhat insensitively given the obvious temerity and reluctance of his namesake to speak, but Henry appeared not to hear de Furnellis's words.

'We tried to separate that which is given in formal confessional for the seeking of absolution for sins and purification of the soul — from what might be said to a parish priest as a personal friend and counsellor. We came to the conclusion that it was difficult and sometimes impossible.'

Thomas took it upon himself to try to interpret this philosophical dilemma. 'You are unsure what you may tell others of what you learn from your parishioners, is that it?'

Henry nodded. 'We also decided that the division between the two was not a fixed point but moved according to the seriousness of the matter concerned. A confession about lewd thoughts or pilfering apples was not in the same class as murder or putting lives at risk.'

De Wolfe was becoming impatient with this priestly long-windedness. 'So what is it that you feel able to tell us, Father Henry — if anything?'

The sheriff chipped in again. 'Remember, many lives have been lost, and if it were not for our subterfuge this week another full ship's crew would have been slaughtered!'

The parish priest looked doleful and chastened. 'I realise that — I have heard today that that evil shipmaster is now known to have strangled the unfortunate lad whose body I found. It was that and the knowledge that the same man intended the deaths of those shipmen this week that has decided me to speak.'

Thank God for that, thought John, and he meant it literally. 'Tell us what you know! It may save more lives. Do you know who killed the Keeper of the Peace and the pedlar?'

Henry looked at his fellow priest, Thomas de Peyne, and the little man nodded reassuringly for him to continue.

'This was not heard in this church as a confession, so I feel free to repeat it, even though I suppose it was meant as a confidential whisper. One of the villagers, admittedly a little free with his tongue from drink, told me that he had heard someone boasting in the tavern across there that they had 'seen off' a drunken pedlar who was poking his nose into business that did not concern him.'

The sheriff roused himself and leant across, his bloodhound features only inches from the priest's. 'Ha! And who was that someone?'

The other Henry hesitated, then took the plunge. 'It was one of the carters who take goods inland somewhere. That's their wagon in the barn.'

The sheriff and coroner exchanged a look of triumph. Though the chain of confession was tortuous, they were getting somewhere at last.

'And what else do you know, father?' asked John encouragingly. 'Tell us anything that you feel is not sacred to your confessional. It may save more lives.'

'No more confessions, but now that I have started I can tell you that with my own eyes and ears I know that the portreeve and that man from Exeter have been up to no good in respect of the goods that pass through this harbour. And I suspect that that surly wretch from the priory is mixed up with them, too.'

'What have you seen, brother?' asked Thomas, trying keep up the momentum now that the old priest's tongue had been loosened.

'Elias sometimes seems to forget that I can read as well as himself. I have been in that chamber where they scribe all their records many times — in fact, I slid back in there deliberately not long ago when no one was there.'

'You checked the records, you mean?' asked John. 'But we have done that endlessly and have no means of telling whether they are true or false.'

Henry tapped the side of his nose. Now that he had committed himself to his saga of disclosures, he almost seemed to be enjoying it. 'You had no means of checking against John Capie's tallies, did you? I went out of my way to ask Capie to explain how he did it with his sticks and his cords — just as a matter of idle curiosity, you understand? Then when I saw them on Elias's table, along with what Elias had listed in his rolls, I saw that there were numerous omissions in that day's entries.'

'Do you mean in respect of the Customs dues on the wool?' asked de Furnellis.

The priest was scathing in his dismissal of the sheriff's suggestion. 'No, not that! Everyone knows that the wool tax is fiddled all the time; John Capie and the bailiff see to that. I mean the alleged imports of wine, and cloth and fruits — sometimes even tin and marble!'

'Why didn't you tell us this before?' snapped the sheriff.

The old priest stared at the floor. 'I have to live here, my son. I am old and have not much longer to endure this world, but there is nowhere else I can go.' He faced the altar and crossed himself, Thomas following suit. 'I turned a blind eye, God forgive me, until that lad was strangled and I saw his young body in the pit I meant for my dog. Then the Keeper was slain and that drunken hawker. My conscience began to overwhelm me, and now that you king's men have descended upon us and will carry off those who would have wreaked vengeance on me if I had betrayed them I cannot hold my tongue any longer.'

He sank to his knees and began to pray again. It seemed that he had said all he was going to divulge. 'Stay with him, Thomas,' murmured de Wolfe. 'When he is ready, take down every word he said and see if you can get more detail.'

They left the two clerics talking to their Maker and left the church, going directly across the track to the thatched building opposite. As they entered the Harbour Inn, they saw the surly landlord hurrying out of the back door to see what was going on in the yard behind, beyond which was the barn where the coroner had lodged on a previous visit. As they followed him, they heard shouting and scuffling and found Ralph Morin and Gwyn coming across the yard, helping two soldiers to subdue two scruffy men who were turning and twisting in their grip.

'Found these two sods hiding together in the privy,' announced Gwyn with a great grin on his face. 'We thought of pushing them down the hole, but I thought you might want to speak to them first!'

The sheriff grabbed the innkeeper by the shoulder. 'Who are these men?' he demanded.

'Two of the carters who serve this port,' replied the man, deciding that telling the truth was the best course of action today.

'No, we're bloody not!' yelled one of them, a squat, black-haired man with a face ravaged by cowpox. 'Just travellers, passing through.'

Just passing through the privy, is that it?' said de Wolfe sarcastically. 'Which of you killed the pedlar, or did you do it between you? We know all about it, so don't waste my time by lying.'

The reaction was surprising and satisfying to the law officers. Though the pox-ridden fellow again started to rave denials, the other, younger man, thin and fair-haired, tried to fall to his knees but was jerked up by his captors. He began wailing and sobbing, his eyes rolling wildly. 'It wasn't me, it was Dolwin who killed him!' he screeched, jerking his head towards his companion. 'And it was him who did for that bloody Keeper! I had nothing to do with it!'

Dolwin almost burst a blood vessel trying to struggle from the grasp of Gwyn and a burly man-at-arms to get at the man who was betraying him. A stream of blasphemies accompanied a promise to 'tear his lying tongue from his head', but Gwyn silenced him with a punch to the belly that doubled him up.

'Do you know the names of these men?' demanded the sheriff of the tavern keeper, who decided that cooperation was now the safest policy.

'That one with the scars is Dolwin Veg — and the skinny fellow is Adam Grendel. Both of them are carters, working for the manor.'

Henry de Furnellis, beginning to feel his age after all the activity of the day, sat himself on a tree-stump and pointed at the two captives. 'Right, we need to hear a little more of their tale,' he said amiably. 'Ralph, get them tied to those fence posts over there. We'll wait until Sir John's clerk is free to take down some confessions. Meanwhile, landlord, we'll all have a jar of ale to revive us after all these exertions!'