CHAPTER SEVEN

In which Crowner John defeats an ambush

What Thomas de Peyne learnt was repeated that evening over supper at the house in Martin's Lane. John had to be circumspect in what topics he launched with Matilda, as some sent her into a rage, such as any mention of the Bush Inn or Dawlish. Even a mention of Gwyn or Thomas provoked heavy sarcasm, as she considered one to be a Celtic savage and the other a pervert, even though the little priest had long been restored to grace. Many other subjects failed to stir her from her almost permanent mood of sullen depression, but he could usually depend upon tales concerning the Church or the aristocracy to spark her attention. He had previously related to her the mystery of the seaman's death in Axmouth, without getting much response, but now he added what had been obtained from Father Matthew, the parish priest of Seaton. He refrained from telling her that it was Thomas who had interviewed the incumbent and craftily embroidered his tale with a description of the church.

'For such a small and mean village, the church is surprisingly neat,' he observed as he cut some slices from a boiled fowl with his dagger and slid them on to her trencher of yesterday's bread. 'Built of stone, quite small, but a bell-cote at one end and a little porch on the south.'

Matilda stopped chewing for a moment and nodded at him. 'Size is not, everything, even in a church. It is the quality of the priest that matters. At my St Olave's, which is tiny, we are blessed with a saint in the shape of Julian Fulk.'

Fulk was her hero in a cassock, and if John had not known her better he might have suspected that she had amorous designs on Julian Fulk. As far as he was concerned, Fulk was short, fat and oily. He had once even been a suspect in a series of murders, and John regretted that he had not turned out to be the culprit. However, he stifled the thought and carried on with his tale.

'This Father Matthew, who seemed an upright and venerable man, did his best to help us over the killing, but of course his vow of silence concerning confessions severely limited what he could tell us.'

Matilda visibly bristled. 'I should think so, indeed! I trust you did not badger the man to break his faith … the confessional is inviolate, John!

'I am well aware of that, wife,' said de Wolfe in his most placatory tone. 'But there is surely a difference between what is said with the intention of it being within the doctrines of the Church and other comments made outwith that rigid rule.'

Matilda glared at him suspiciously. 'What d'you mean by that?'

'Well, a man confessing his sins to a priest is one thing. But if the same man casually tells the priest that he has bought a pound of pork for his dinner, then the priest would hardly refuse to repeat that to someone else on the grounds that it was a sacred secret!'

'I think you are being facetious, husband! Trust you to try to poke fun at the Holy Church. And what sense does this make to your story?'

'The good man admitted that the dead youth had come to speak to him on two occasions after he had returned from his voyage. As you clearly say, he could tell us nothing of the nature of his discourse with the lad, but he told us that Simon was very distressed and fearful for his immortal soul.'

'That doesn't help you much,' grunted Matilda, who had hoped for something more dramatic.

'No, but though the priest could not tell us the substance of the ship boy's anguish, he said that Simon's concern was his dilemma about disclosing it to the authorities outside the confessional. It also seemed a dilemma to the good father as well! '

Matilda scowled down at her chicken. 'I'm not sure that this priest should have told you as much as he did, John. He seems to have steered very close to breaking his vow of secrecy.'

John struggled to keep his impatience in check. 'Look, if what happened was what I think, then there are about six murders as well as the slaying of the young man to be accounted for! Should one solitary priest stand between these heinous crimes and the retribution of the law?'

He had picked the wrong person to whom that question should have been posed. Matilda flared up like a pitch-brand thrust into the fire. 'Of course he should! God is the final judge, not a bunch of barons or Chancery clerks at the Eyre of Assize! Where would we be if it was common knowledge that a priest would go running to the sheriff or coroner with every bit of tittle-tattle heard in the confessional?'

Her husband muttered something under his breath and concentrated on his food, abandoning any further attempt to hold a conversation. He kept it in his head, however, and aired it again later, when he took Brutus for his constitutional down to Idle Lane. When he repeated the story to Nesta, she asked him what he made of the Seaton cleric's response to his questions.

'The fellow was worried himself, that was clear,' said John. 'I felt that he was wrestling with his own conscience, as he knew something that would explain Simon Makerel's murder — and possibly other deaths. Even more, he knew that his silence might lead to similar tragedies in the future, but his vow of silence was too powerful for him to tell me. All he could do was hint.'

The red-headed innkeeper looked up at him with her big hazel eyes. 'And what do you think happened, Sir Coroner?' she asked.

'I think this Simon was so shocked by what he had witnessed on his last voyage in The Tiger that he was trying to nerve himself to tell someone, such as the Keeper of the Peace. But someone learnt of his indecision and decided to silence him before he could give them away.'

'And the shocking thing he witnessed?' persisted the Welshwoman.

'Piracy, of course! The seizing of a ship and the murder of her crew. That was why Simon had more money than usual. It was a forward payment in anticipation of the profits — and a sweetener to the crew to keep their mouths shut.'

Nesta reached across her lover to refill his ale-mug from a jar on the table. 'But this is all supposition, John. You have no proof of it?'

He shook his head. 'Nor likely to get any, but it seems the only explanation of what happened. Why else would some dull lad get himself strangled, a lad who has been to his priest to seek solace and advice? If only the bloody clergy would weigh up human life more sensibly against their so-called religious morals, then justice would be better served!'

Nesta smiled at him. 'You are beginning to sound more like Gwyn every day! They'll have you for blasphemy or heresy if you sound off like that too often!'

De Wolfe shook his head impatiently. 'It riles me to think that this Father Matthew holds the key to the mystery in his head, yet because of some edict centuries ago from some bloody Pope, he can't tell me!'

His mistress put a consoling hand on his arm. 'Why don't you talk to your good friend, the archdeacon. Maybe he can get this priest to relax his silence?'

John shook his head. 'The tradition is too well ingrained in the Church. A mere archdeacon would have no power, nor even a bishop. But I have to speak to John de Alençon soon on another matter, so perhaps I'll raise it with him.'

That 'other matter' was one that caused the little devil from Dawlish to peep over his shoulder unbidden.


Though most activities came to a halt on the Sabbath, certain of the more unscrupulous members of the population were willing to forgo their day of rest, given that the rewards were sufficient to make it worth their while. So it was that at dead of night a certain ox-cart creaked its way along the lonely track that ran from Honiton towards Ilminster. The moon appeared fitfully through broken cloud, but at the speed the beasts walked there was little danger of the cart going off the highway, especially as the ruts of hardened mud kept the big wooden wheels on the track.

On the driving-board, two men sat hunched, silent and sleepy. The one on the right held the reins, though they had little function, as the pair of oxen plodded on regardless of human intervention. Behind them, the canvas hood was squared off over a framework of hazel rods to leave a roomy interior. Part of their original cargo had been off-loaded at Honiton, and the rest was destined for Ilminster, a few miles further on. They passed through the usual varied countryside, dimly seen in the moonlight. Where there were hamlets, strip-fields ran off away from the road. Then common land and waste alternated with long stretches of woodland, where the forest had not yet been assarted to increase the acreage of cultivated ground. The road undulated like the country it passed through, but there were no steep hills to challenge the oxen.

There was no other traffic, every God-fearing person being sound asleep. With no monastery or cathedral within many miles, even the midnight office of Matins was lacking, as parish priests kept to their beds until dawn, many of them having done a hard day's work in the fields alongside their parishioners.

The only accompaniment to the creaking of the axle-pins was the hoot of an owl, the distant bark of a dog-fox and the occasional snuffle of a badger at the side of the track. They passed the village of Rawridge, but if any of the inhabitants were still awake they took care not to peer out at the trundling cart but pulled their sheepskins over their heads and pretended that they were deaf.

Yet a mile further on, the dozing driver and his companion were suddenly confronted by someone who was well and truly awake. In the road ahead, a dim light was waving, and as the patient oxen slowed to a halt a voice rang out in the still night air.

'Halt, in the name of the king!' The feeble candleglow from the horn lantern reflected off the steel blade of a sword held by the man who had shouted, and it dimly revealed another figure standing behind him wielding a pike.

'Can't be another thieving pedlar!' muttered the driver to his mate. Aloud, he demanded to know who was holding them up. 'If you are seeking to rob us, you'll have to answer to the bailiff of Axmouth — and the Prior of Loders. '

The two men standing in the middle of the track approached, and as they did so the moon slid out from behind a cloud and gave a far better light than the lantern.

'I am the Keeper of the Peace for this Hundred, fellow,' snapped Luke de Casewold. 'I want to know what you are doing hauling a cart around the king's highway at this hour of the morning?'

'There's no law against that, is there?' growled the driver truculently. 'This isn't a borough or city with a curfew.'

The Keeper brandished his long sword. 'Get down from there! I want to know who you are and what you have in that wagon. Quickly now!' He motioned to Hugh Bogge to go around to the tailboard of the cart. 'See what they have in the back. Here, take the lantern!'

The driver, a thickset man with a face like one of his oxen, made no move to climb down, and his companion, an equally ruffianly fellow, also ignored the law officer's demand.

'We are just delivering goods from Axmouth,' growled the carter. 'One of the wheel bearings cracked in Honiton and we wasted hours finding a blacksmith. I have to deliver the rest of the goods to Ilminster by morning, so we had no choice but to travel all night.'

De Casewold cackled derisively. 'Don't give me that, you liar! Do you crack your wheel bearings regularly, then? Several times now I've seen a cart like this on the roads late at night.'

The driver looked at his companion and shrugged. 'We've done our best,' he muttered cryptically and began to climb down from the driving-board.

There was a cry from the back as Bogge unlashed the cords holding down the tail-flap and the Keeper hurried around to him, followed closely by the two men. Luke found his clerk holding up his lantem and staring aghast into the back of the wagon. Two men, brandishing long daggers and heavy cudgels, were advancing towards them past a pile of kegs and bales. As they stepped back, the law officer and his clerk found that the driver and his mate were blocking their retreat, both now having wicked-looking knives in their hands.


It was Tuesday before the bodies were found. A mile outside the hamlet of Rawridge was a large area of common land, rising to the edge of dark forest. Soon after dawn, a shepherd had rounded up several score of his flock to check on new lambs that were appearing late in the season. His two black bitches had done their work, and the sheep were safely inside a crude pound with a hurdle across the entrance.

An old man of almost sixty, he squatted with his back against the dry-stone wall and pulled a hunk of bread and a piece of cheese from a cloth pouch on the belt that clinched his ragged tunic. His dogs lay nearby, watching him intently with their pink tongues hanging out, until he shared the scraps with them. Then, with an effort, he hauled himself to his feet and forced his aching joints to take him up towards the trees, where a clear spring bubbled out of the hillside. As he bent to scoop water to his lips with his cupped hands, one of the bitches ran off into the woodland. When he called sharply to her to come, she stood uncertainly, whining and looking back at him.

Alfred knew every nuance of his dogs' behaviour, probably better than he could read his wife's moods. He realised that something was worrying the animal, especially when the other bitch ran after her and began snuffling in the scatter of last autumn's leaves. Ambling after them, content that his sheep were safe for the moment, he pushed through the sprouting brambles and nettles along the tree-line to where the dogs were keening.

It was obvious at first sight what was upsetting them.

The beech and oak leaves had been disturbed, older black mould from below being mixed with the paler leaves. The younger dog had been scratching at the pile, and a human hand projected like a claw.

Alfred was in a dilemma, as he knew a little about the rules announced by the manor-bailiff a year or two ago concerning dead bodies. He was now the 'First Finder', and his instincts were to turn around and forget all about it, as any involvement with the law was bad news. He stood for a few minutes staring at the hand, which was undoubtedly attached to a corpse beneath. Then a combination of a sense of duty, a fear of retribution and a touch of pride at being the centre of attention for a short while decided him that he had better do something about this. Gingerly, he kicked away some of the soggy leaves and exposed an arm, which was bloodstained above the wrist. As a shepherd, he was well used to gory dead animals, such as sheep ravaged by foxes and the occasional wolf, as well as to slaughter-time and the pig-killings. He gripped the dead hand and pulled vigorously, when a shoulder and a head surfaced above the leaf mould. Hardened as he was, the sight of a gaping cut throat that had nearly severed the head was something of a shock, especially when the disturbance of the corpse had caused a leg to appear at the other side of the heap of leaves.

Dropping the wrist, he backed away, muttering little-used prayers under his breath and making the sign of the cross. Then, whistling at his dogs, he began hurrying back down the common, intent on fetching his manor-reeve as soon as possible.


By mid-afternoon the coroner was approaching the scene with his officer and clerk, brought urgently from Exeter by the news that a king's law officer and his clerk had been foully slain. They had been summoned by the bailiff of Honiton, after the manor-reeve from Rawridge had brought him the news.

'I went straight up to this vill, Sir John, to check for myself,' he reported as they rode the last half-mile to Rawridge. 'I recognised the poor souls straight away. I knew the Keeper fairly well. Though to tell the truth he was something of a nuisance, he should not have come to an end like that.'

'And the other one? That was his clerk, Bogge?' growled de Wolfe.

'It was indeed. A harmless fellow, he put up with the Keeper's odd ways well enough.'

They passed the village, away to their left, and continued for almost a mile, before leaving the Ilminster road and climbing across the common land to where a group of men were standing, where the grass gave way to forest. One was the manor-reeve, another the old shepherd who was now firmly the First Finder, whether he liked it or not. The rest were villagers, including the parish priest, a fat Irishman who was mumbling prayers over the corpses. Inevitably, Thomas de Peyne soon joined him, adding his supplications in much better Latin, though averting his squeamish eyes from the carnage as he chanted.

There was little they could do at the scene, except to have the bodies pulled clear of the forest floor, where most of the leaf mulch and twigs could be brushed off, so that the full extent of the injuries could be seen.

'Right mess they are in, poor devils,' grunted Gwyn, bending over the familiar figures as they lay grotesquely twisted on the coarse grass.

Hugh Bogge had been beaten about the head so severely that his face was hardly recognisable. However, his death was due to several deep stab wounds in the neck and upper chest, soaking his tunic with blood, much of which had dried to a brown crust. Luke de Casewold had even more horrific injuries, in that his head was almost detached from his neck by a single massive cut that completely severed his windpipe and gullet and bit deeply into the joints between the bones of his spine.

'That's no dagger wound; that must have been a sword!' said John decisively.

'Perhaps this was the one?' said the bailiff, who had been kicking about in the base of the hollow where the bodies had been concealed. He held up a yard-long sword with a hilt wound with silver wire and a pommel engraved with concentric circles.

'That's the Keeper's own weapon!' growled Gwyn. 'I remember seeing it at his side.'

John shook his head sadly. 'That's the ultimate sorrow, to be slain by your own sword,' he said. 'Yet he was a former campaigner; he knew well enough how to defend himself. What in hell happened here?'

The bailiff looked around the long sloping landscape, falling away down to the road a furlong distant. 'But did it happen here? Or were the cadavers just dumped here as a hiding place?'

The shepherd piped up, nervous in the presence of these stern men from Exeter. 'If my bitches had not nosed them out, they may have lain here for years without being found.'

The coroner followed the bailiff's eyes down to the track between Honiton and Ilminster. 'That's where it happened, without doubt. Somewhere along that road.' He turned to the reeve and the handful of men from the village.

'You may have heard of a similar death near Honiton quite recently, when a man was killed and hidden away.'

There were nods and grunts and throat-clearings. 'That pedlar fellow, the drunk Setricus,' muttered the reeve.

'Is there any way of telling when these poor sinners went to the Lord?' asked the priest in a broad Irish accent.

Gwyn was scathing about the religious euphemism. 'D'you mean when did they have their throats cut and their heads beaten in?' He looked at de Wolfe for his opinion.

'The bodies are not at all corrupt, even though the weather is fairly warm,' mused the coroner. 'They still have their death stiffness, so I suspect their deaths were not before the weekend.' He glowered around the ring of faces. 'Have any of you noticed any strangers passing through your village in recent days?'

The reeve shook his head. 'That is an impossible question, with respect, sir. The main highway there passes from Exeter to Ilminster and beyond to Yeovil and even London! And our village is not right on the road, which skirts it to the south. What chance have we of keeping tally of traffic?'

'What about at night? I have my reasons for asking that.'

A few shifty looks were exchanged between the men. 'We keep ourselves to ourselves, sir, when it comes to night-riders,' said the reeve. 'And hard work by day means sound sleep at night.'

De Wolfe saw that it was pointless to pursue the issue.

Both from fear and self-interest, the villagers were not going to divulge anything they might know about villains abroad at the dead of night. He looked down at the pathetic remains of the law officer and his clerk. 'We must move these bodies to the church with all the decency they deserve. They undoubtedly came to their death while doing their duty, which was the king's business. They must be treated with the respect that their office requires.'

The parish priest wrung his hands. 'I will say a Mass over them directly. I hear they come from Axminster, so will they be returned there for burial?'

John shrugged. 'Sir Luke is a widower, but I have no knowledge of other family. Nor do I know who will mourn his clerk, but no doubt enquiries can be made. Meanwhile, I must hold an inquest, which will be later this afternoon.'

He turned to Gwyn, to give him the expected instructions for arranging for a jury to hear the case, futile though he expected the proceedings to be. As the day was advancing, they set the time for the inquest at two hours hence. John knew that they could not get back to the city before dusk and decided to spend the night in Honiton and ride back home in the morning.

'While you and Thomas arrange for the removal of the corpses and organise the inquest, I will have a look at the road, to see if there is any sign of where this outrage took place.'

He took the bailiff, a stolid, sensible man of about his own age and they strode back down to the road, where a couple of lads were minding the horses. Mounting up, John slowly walked his rounsey eastwards in the direction of distant Ilminster, scanning the track and the verges as he went.

'What are we looking for, Crowner?' asked the bailiff. 'This road has been well used for a couple of days since, if you are right about when the men were killed.'

De Wolfe agreed with him but said that he would ride half a mile further. 'I want to check if there are any signs of a fight, such as blood or crushing of the undergrowth at the verge. They are hardly likely to have moved two heavy bodies further than necessary,' he said. 'Though of course it is quite likely that they had a cart.'

Eventually, they turned back and retraced their route, passing the sad procession of the two bodies laid on a handcart brought from the village. A few hundred paces beyond this, John abruptly reined in his horse and slid from the saddle. When the bailiff joined him, he was studying the mud of the road. It had not rained for several days and the ruts had dried into firm ridges, though they were still damp. At the place which he was inspecting, a number of these ridges had been crushed in a confused pattern and, looking four paces to the right, he saw that the weeds and spiky new grass of the verge were flattened. There were many other places where this had happened, and animals like foxes and badgers could have been responsible as they trampled their runs into the woods — but when he looked he saw brown staining on some of the vegetation. Kicking the undergrowth aside with his foot, he came across a drying pool of blood and some fragments of flesh, already buzzing with flies and other insects.

'This is where it happened!' he said grimly as the bailiff joined him.

By now the cortege with its handcart had caught up with them, and all the locals were staring in ghoulish fascination at the gory vestiges of the slaying.

'Doesn't help in saying who did it,' grunted Gwyn, who was walking with the cart, his mare following behind in the care of a small boy from the village.

John rubbed his stubble, his usual aid to deep thought. 'It suggests that a wagon was involved. Why else would a fatal attack occur just here? There is no cover for an outlaw ambush, and the place where the bodies were hidden is a good half-mile away, a long distance to carry them without transport.'

'So you need to find a cart with bloodstains, if the bodies were carried on it,' suggested Thomas.

'A bucket of water and a broom would soon get rid of those,' said Gwyn pessimistically. 'And which cart are we going to look at, anyway?'

An hour later they began the short inquest, which was like the previous ones in this area — indecisive and uninformative. The proceedings were held in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin, a plain building of pebbled stone set on a hillside. A ring of old yews suggested that the site was ancient long before the church was built. The two bodies were now decently covered with some sacks from the adjacent tithe barn. As befitted his rank, Sir Luke de Casewold lay on the parish bier, a wooden stretcher with legs, which was usually hung from ropes slung over the rafters at the back of the church. His clerk, Hugh Bogge, had to make do with a wattle hurdle laid on the ground alongside.

Gwyn had dragooned a dozen men as a jury, including all those who had been up at the place where the corpses were discovered, together with a few who had gravitated to the churchyard to see what was going on.

The routine was gone through, with evidence of identity from both Gwyn and the bailiff of the Budleigh Hundred, who knew the dead men in life. Presentment of Englishry was obviously impossible, as the Keeper was a Norman knight and Bogge was certainly no Saxon. The imposition of a murdrum fine on the hundred was inevitable, but by the time the justices considered it de Wolfe fervently hoped that the culprits would be found. The old shepherd haltingly said his piece and seemed relieved that he would not be clapped into gaol or be amerced for being the First Finder.

There was no other evidence and all the coroner could do, after the jury had satisfied their morbid curiosity by peering at the wounds as they filed past the bodies, was to declare that the two victims had been murdered by persons unknown and that the inquest would be adjourned sine die when hopefully further evidence would be available.

Thomas recorded the proceedings, but these were so sparse that they hardly covered half a leaf of parchment, a palimpsest made by erasing previous writing by scraping and chalking. By then, evening was upon them and, with instructions to the bailiff to send messages to Axminster to convey the sad tidings to the relatives and arrange for the bodies to be collected, the coroner and his officer and clerk set off on the five mile journey back to Honiton, where they could find a tavern that would provide a meal and a pallet in the loft for the night:

After they had supped the thin potage and eaten a mutton pie with boiled leeks and cabbage, the three investigators sat around a small glowing firepit in the middle of the taproom for a survey of the day's events. As darkness fell outside, Gwyn drank cider, John had a quart of ale and Thomas sipped a cup of indifferent wine with an expression that suggested it was a cough linctus from the village apothecary.

'This has been a sad day for the king's peace in this county,' said de Wolfe in a mournful voice that held an undertone of anger. 'The man was a fool in some respects, but his loyalties were in the right place.'

Gwyn sucked his moustache dry, then replied. 'It galls me to think that there are bastards at large in this area who seem to act as they think fit, then crush anyone who gets in their way! '

Thomas took another cautious sip of his red wine. 'I've not been privy to all that you have seen in Axmouth. Are we thinking all these deaths — the ship's boy, the pedlar and now the Keeper and his clerk — are all part of the same conspiracy — whatever that might be?'

The coroner glowered into the fire and nodded. 'I am convinced they are, Thomas. The lad was eliminated because his conscience was driving him towards betraying the wanton savagery of pirates. But as to who did it, we have no idea yet.'

'What about the pedlar and the Keeper?' asked Gwyn. 'A knight and one very little above a beggar — why should their deaths be linked?'

'Because they both showed too much interest in what was being carted about the countryside,' replied de Wolfe. 'A pity there are so many damned carters about these days, otherwise we could lean on a few of them and see what they have to say.'

Gwyn grunted dismissively. 'If their mouths are as tight as these folk in Axmouth, we'd learn nothing at all!' he growled.


The coroner's trio left Honiton early in the morning, but not so early that they missed breaking their fast. At the inn, they were given oatmeal gruel sweetened with honey, one of Thomas's favourites. Gwyn had already eaten enough for a horse before they were given a couple of eggs and slices of salt bacon fried in pork dripping. A loaf of fresh rye bread with butter and cheese was washed down with weak ale, the whole meal being sufficient to get the Cornishman to Exeter before he needed refuelling again.

They set off along the high road and rode in silence for a while. Though de Wolfe had found the Keeper an irritating person, he was saddened by his violent death and felt a glowering anger that a royal law officer had been so mistreated when he was doing his duty, however unwisely he went about it.

Typically for April, the weather was changeable and today there was a brisk wind pushing heavy grey clouds rapidly across the sky from the west. Occasional spats of rain came down, not enough to dampen them significantly, though Thomas pulled his black mantle closer about him as he trotted along in the wake of the two bigger horses. He was thinking holy thoughts, mainly about when he could save enough from his small stipend to afford a new copy of the Vulgate of St Jerome, his old one being so used that the pages were frayed and the binding falling apart.

A couple of miles out of Honiton, the road went through an arm of the forest, dense trees, now breaking into leaf, crowding close on either side of the track. As it curved to the left, Gwyn's keen hearing picked out some distant commotion ahead of them.

'Some trouble brewing, by the sounds of it,' he grunted and touched his mare's flanks with his heels to speed her up. John' followed suit, leaving Thomas behind but soon able to hear shouts and yells in the distance. As they rounded the bend they saw a mélée in front of them, and both coroner and his officer kicked their mounts into a canter, hoisting out their swords as they went. As they approached, de Wolfe saw that three men were trying to fight off half a dozen ruffians but were losing the battle. Two other persons were lying on the ground, and a pair of mules and several horses were loose, nervously trying to escape into the trees. One of the defenders had a sword but seemed to be using it clumsily left-handed, his other arm hanging at his side. The other two had staves and were swinging them at assailants armed with clubs and a short pike.

With loud roars, the coroner and his officer thundered down at the tumult, and suddenly the attackers became aware of two large horses bearing down on them, one of them a massive destrier. Each carried a large man waving a wicked-looking broadsword, screaming imprecations that suggested that they were only too happy to use their blades to sever heads from bodies!

The half-dozen outlaws abruptly abandoned their attack and ran for the shelter of the forest, three to each side of the track. Gwyn galloped after one trio and caught the laggard such a blow with his sword that he virtually severed his arm at the shoulder, the other two melting into the trees. On the opposite side, John ran down one man, who vanished under the huge hairy feet of Odin, but again the other two disappeared into the dense forest, where de Wolfe felt disinclined to follow.

The two law officers wheeled back to the road and slid from their mounts to see what damage had been done to the travellers, just as Thomas clopped up on his palfrey. He went straight to the man with the sword, who had sunk to the ground, groaning and clasping his injured right arm. Blood was trickling from the cuff of his leather jerkin, dripping off his fingers on to the earth. As Gwyn and de Wolfe went to look at the two other inert figures lying in the road, the little priest supported the injured man and tried to see what damage had been done.

'One of the swine cut me with a pike,' muttered the victim, a dark-haired man of about thirty. He was pale and sweating with shock, as one of the two other defenders came to his side, the other one limping across to where the coroner and Gwyn were attending to the fallen pair. This new arrival had a livid bruise across his face and forehead where he had been struck by some blunt weapon, but seemed otherwise unhurt.

'Owain, how are you faring?' he asked solicitously, dropping on one knee alongside Thomas.

'We had best get his arm out of that sleeve and see what needs to be done,' suggested Thomas, and with the bruised man giving a running commentary of thanks for their timely rescue they gently pulled Owain's jerkin half-off, to expose a long but seemingly shallow cut running down the forearm.

As Thomas squeezed the upper arm to stanch the flow, the older man produced a relatively clean linen cloth from his pouch and wrapped it tightly around the slashed arm. 'That's better, friends. I feel halfway to being recovered already!' said Owain. 'Thank God the cut looks less serious than I feared. I need that arm to make my living!'

His colour had certainly improved, and Thomas had a chance to look around to see what was happening to the other victims. For the first time he realised that the two fallen men were priests, rather corpulent men in black cassocks and cloaks. Presumably, they were the ones who had been riding the mules, which were now being rounded up by the second defender. The three horses, reassured by the presence of the impassive Odin and Gwyn's brown mare, were unconcernedly cropping the new grass of the verge.

'Bloody outlaws! Every bastard one of them should be rounded up and hanged!' swore the man attending to Owain. He was a florid, middle-aged man in good quality clothes, and Thomas marked him down as a merchant, like the other man who had coaxed the mules back into the road.

'We must get you into Exeter and have you treated at St John's Priory,' said Thomas to the younger man with the slashed arm. 'Can you get to your feet now?'

With help from the other two, Owain got up and, with his damaged arm cradled against his chest, was able to walk to the edge of the road, where he sat on a fallen log. By now, the two priests had begun to groan and move, both having suffered blows to the head by the staves of the ruffians who had attacked them. A few minutes later they had crawled to a sitting position, though one vomited copiously into the grass before squatting with his bruised head in his hands.

Gwyn ambled over to look at the outlaw that he had struck with his sword, but the man was stone dead, lying in a great pool of sticky blood that had gushed from a large artery, severed under his collarbone. 'One less for the gallows!' observed Gwyn cheerfully. 'What about the other one, Crowner?'

At the opposite side of the track, de Wolfe found that the scoundrel that Odin had trodden on was equally dead, his chest and head almost flattened by the iron-shod hooves of the old warhorse.

One of the merchants had a wineskin on his saddle and this helped to restore everyone's spirits, as explanations were offered while the two priests recovered their wits. Owain's wound seemed to have stopped bleeding, thanks to a tightly twisted kerchief bound around his upper arm.

The two older men were merchants from Bristol, travelling to Exeter to arrange purchases of wool. 'I thought that riding in a company of five men would be enough to keep us safe from trail-bastons like those,' grunted one under his breath. 'I forgot that two were damned priests who would not have so much as a club to defend themselves with!'

These holy men were canons from Wells, going to Exeter Cathedral on some ecclesiastical errand. Owain was also going to the same great church, but on quite different business.

'I am a stonemason and especially a stone carver,' he explained. 'That's why I am so concerned about my arm — it had to be the right one, too, the one I use most to earn my living.'

Gwyn and John de Wolfe soon realised that he was a Welshman and began speaking to him in their common Celtic language. His full name was Owain ap Gronow and he came from Chepstow on the Welsh border, though his work often took him to Gloucester Cathedral. He had been recommended from there to the Chapter in Exeter, who needed some expert carving done on a new shrine.

'As long as the wound does not suppurate, it should heal well,' advised John, who had seen every possible injury during twenty years on battlefields from Ireland to the Holy Land. 'We'll get you to Brother Saulf at St John's in the city; he's a wonder with such problems. You'll be carving again in a fortnight!'

After half an hour order was restored and their journey was ready to be started again. The two canons, still shaky but anxious to get to the safety of Exeter, were hauled up on to their mules, and Owain was lifted up behind Gwyn on his mare, as his arm was too fragile to control the reins. With his rounsey on a halter behind one of the merchants, they set off on the remaining seven miles to the city, leaving the two slain outlaws to rot away in the bushes at the side of the road.


By early afternoon the party had reached Exeter and the injured stonemason had been delivered into the care of the healing monks at St John's Priory, while the travelling priests were settled in the cathedral Close. The coroner had called on his friend John de Alençon to explain what had happened, and with his nephew Thomas's fussy assistance the archdeacon had personally arranged for the assaulted canons to be accommodated in the guest rooms attached to the bishop's palace on the south side of the great church.

When all this was done, John went wearily back to his house, still aching from the effects of the long ride. Not unsurprisingly, his wife was absent, and as Mary bustled around to get him some food she told him that her mistress had left the previous day and had not returned.

'She said she was going to seek God, so I suppose she's gone as usual to pray at St Olave's.' Her brow furrowed. 'Though she wore her oldest kirtle and cloak, which is odd, as she always dresses up for the priest's benefit. And she must have gone to stay with someone overnight.'

'God must be bloody fed up with listening to her, day after day!' grumbled John irreverently. 'What does she find to say to Him all the time?'

'Praying for forgiveness for you — and for her brother, Sir Coroner!' replied the maid tartly as she put a wooden bowl of steaming potage in front of him.

He sat on the only stool in the small shed that she called home, where the cooking was done as well. Mary called him 'Sir Coroner' only when she was annoyed with his behaviour, though he failed to see what he had done this time to deserve her sarcasm. She held a flat pan containing beef dripping over the fire to fry two eggs and some pieces of salt bacon. As she slid these on to a thick slice of bread in lieu of a platter and laid them on the small table, Mary elaborated on her criticisms.

'You'll lose her one of these days, mark my words. There's only so much a woman can take from the men around her.'

Normally, a servant being this outspoken would receive a buffet from her master, but John had a respect and affection for his maid that were not wholly due to their former intimacy in the back of the washshed. As he ate, he grunted his excuses. 'She's hardly been a good wife to me, Mary. Without you, I'd have starved and gone around in dirty rags. All she cares about is her damned devotions and her snobbish friends at the cathedral and St Olave's.'

Mary shook her head sadly. 'She's changed lately. I can see it in her face and her very movements. You are a trial to her, with your well-known infidelities, but I think it is her brother who has driven her to this state of despair.'

Richard de Revelle's sister had previously worshipped her elder brother, but had been progressively disenchanted as his bad behaviour was exposed — mainly by her own husband, which made matters worse. His expulsion from his post as sheriff, followed by an ignominious episode in which he had been publicly shamed in an ordeal by battle, seemed to have driven Matilda into a descending spiral of depression and despair.

'So where has she gone, d'you think?' he demanded between mouthfuls of food and cider.

Mary shrugged and stood over him with arms crossed over her bosom in a faintly defiant attitude. 'You tell me, sir! I doubt she's gone to her brother's house, though I hear that he is back from his manor and is in his fine town house in Northgate Street.'

'Could she be at her cousin's place in Fore Street?' he hazarded.

'I doubt she would have left all her fine clothes behind, if she went there. The mistress is too fond of showing off to her 'poor relative', as she calls her!' she added sarcastically.

He rubbed the platter clean with a piece of bread, then stopped with it halfway to his mouth as a sudden thought struck him. 'Surely she hasn't gone back to Polsloe?' he exclaimed. 'She did that last year but soon found the food and raiment not at all to her liking.'

Again Mary shrugged. 'That was last year; she's more desperate now.'

John sighed as he finished his food and drink. 'If you say de Revelle is back at his town house, I'd best go around there and see if Matilda is with him — or whether he knows anything of her.'

A few minutes later he was loping through the busy streets of Exeter, shouldering aside porters struggling under huge bales of wool and dodging men wheeling barrows full of firewood. Swineherds drove fat pigs towards the Shambles for street slaughter, and the raucous voices of stallholders rang out from the booths that lined the roads, selling everything from sausages to shovels. On street corners, barbers shouted invitations for shaves and haircutting — and at Carfoix, the central crossing of the main roads, a villainous-looking fellow waved a pair of pincers, offering to pull any painful teeth. The whole motley throng was part of this vibrant city, thriving on its exports of tin, cloth and wool — even the beggars and vagrants seemed more prosperous than in other towns.

De Wolfe was oblivious to these familiar scenes, his mind full of his own problems, foremost amongst them now being the whereabouts of his wife. Though he could not abide the woman, he was responsible for her well-being and could not ignore the fact that she had disappeared.

His brother-in-law, though he had two large manors in the far west and in the east of the county, had recently bought a house near the North Gate, allegedly for convenience in dealing with various business ventures in the city, one of which was a college in Smythen Street. When his steward ushered John into the solar at the rear of his hall, he was far from pleased to see him. Relations between them, which had always been cool, had hardened into thick ice since Richard had been publicly shamed over the most recent of his misdoings. Yet the coroner's visit seemed not unexpected, as Richard's first words confirmed.

'I suppose you've come enquiring after your grossly misused wife?' he snapped, his pointed beard quivering with indignation.

De Wolfe was in no mood for verbal battles with a man he despised, and he managed to subdue an angry reply. 'I suspect that of late I contributed only a small part to your sister's unhappiness. She is not at home, so do you know where she is?'

'She called yesterday to bid me farewell, as she is entering a nunnery. You have driven her to take the veil, damn you!'

John was only partly surprised, though he thought that her previous attempt to cut herself off from the world had disenchanted her with the idea.

'I presume she has gone to Polsloe again?' he said evenly.

Richard nodded sullenly, piqued that he had not provoked the coroner into a rage. 'She said she never wanted to lay eyes on you again, John!' Then he added in a rare fit of frankness, 'Nor upon me, either!'

There seemed nothing else to say, and de Wolfe turned on his heel and left the house without another word. As he strode back along Northgate Street, his mind was in turmoil, trying to sort out the implications of this news. Would she stay there this time, he wondered? And if so, what was to become of his marriage? Could he get an annulment, given that his friend the archdeacon was dubious about the prospects of success? And if he did, would he be free to marry Nesta? And would she really want him, with her ingrained conviction that a knight and an alehouse keeper were socially incompatible? Could he remain the king's coroner if he did — or even stay on in Exeter? And then what of Gwyn and Thomas, to say nothing of his house, his maid, his horse and his hound?

He growled imprecations under his breath at these troublesome diversions from the need to carry out his coroner's duties and tried to work out a plan of action. Though his first impulse was to ride the short distance to the Priory of St Katherine at Polsloe, as his mind cooled down while he walked through the lanes back to Rougemont he decided to let Matilda stew for a day. If she could walk out on him without a word or so much as a message left behind, then to hell with the woman — why should he scuttle after her like some pageboy or house-lackey? Instead, he directed his feet towards Rougemont and clattered up the wooden stairs into the keep to see the sheriff. He decided not to mention the problem with his wife for the time being, but to try to work out something in relation to the 'Axmouth problem', as he now called it in his mind.

A few moments later, with the inevitable cup of wine in his hand, he sprawled in a leather-backed chair in Henry's chamber, facing the sheriff who sat behind his cluttered table.

'I will have to see Hubert Waiter again, face to face,' he rumbled. 'These outrages have gone on long enough. We cannot have our law officers slain with impunity under our very noses! That way lies anarchy, just as it was years ago in the time of Stephen and Matilda.'

The mention of the last name made him wonder if all Matildas were awkward, aggressive women like his wife, for the old Empress was certainly cast in that mould.

De Furnellis's doleful face, lined and drooping like that of an aged hound, stared at the coroner over the brim of his cup. 'The Justiciar? You'll have to go a long way to find him, John, if you need to confront him quickly.'

'How do you know?' asked de Wolfe suspiciously.

'I had a royal herald here yesterday, dropping off dispatches about the new rate for the county farm for the next half-year.' Henry sounded sour, so John guessed that the Exchequer were again increasing the tax revenue to satisfy the Curia Regis's demand for yet more money to support the king's campaign against Philip of France. 'The herald mentioned that Hubert Walter had sailed from Portsmouth last week for Honfleur and was not expected back in Winchester or London for a month. It seems he has gone to attend Richard at Rouen — perhaps to tell him that he has squeezed all the money out of England that she possesses! '

John banged his empty cup down on the table in annoyance. 'I can't wait another bloody month just to be able to talk to him! I'll have to go there myself and speak to the king if necessary.'

Henry smiled benignly at his friend's impatience. 'You do that, John. The king is beholden to you for your long and faithful service to him — and encouraging you to hang a few tax-dodging bastards will help his budget, so he should be eager to listen to you!'

John was not so sure about his faithful service, as his conscience still plagued him about his failure to prevent the Lionheart's capture in Austria. But perhaps a visit to Rouen might be the chance to exorcise this particular demon. As he contemplated crossing the Channel, a different demon crept back on to his shoulder. If he was to sail for Normandy, then it made sense to use one of his own ships in which to travel, as the three vessels of their wool partnership made frequent crossings. And to arrange this, he would need to go down to Dawlish again to confer with the shipmasters — and as a matter of courtesy to call upon Hilda for her agreement, as three of the vessels had belonged to her, after Thorgils had died. This of course was a blatant fabrication of his mind, as legally the ships were as much his as Hilda's or de Relaga's, but it suited him to manufacture a semi-legitimate excuse for him to visit the blonde beauty once again.

De Furnellis leant back in his chair and fixed John with his blue eyes.

'Why don't you try sterner tactics with these fellows down in Axmouth? Do it on my behalf — take Ralph Morin and a troop of soldiers from the garrison with you. Demand to see what's in those barns, and if anyone tries to stop you arrest them and drag' em back here in chains!'

The coroner was mildly surprised at the sheriff's sudden change of attitude, so different from his usual inertia at doing anything active. Perhaps the murder of one of his Keepers of the Peace had hardened his attitude.

'Do you think that would do any good?' he asked doubtfully.

Henry shrugged. 'What's to lose, apart from another few hours in the saddle? Put the fear of God into the sods, make them show you all they have hidden away and demand to see the tallies of what they are supposed to have. Take your Thomas with you; he can check any documents they may produce.'

He took another swig of his wine and wiped his moustache with his fingers. 'See if that creepy little fellow Capie is as corrupt as most of the Customs clerks. After all, I pay his salary from the county funds; I've got every right to check up on him. Take Sergeant Gabriel and as many men as you need.'

They discussed more details of this pre-emptive raid, and after emptying the wine jug de Wolfe went on his way, now more content that he at least had some sort of plan of campaign about the Axmouth problem.

He was less sure about a plan of campaign in relation to his tangled personal affairs, but philosophically decided to allow fate to take its course.


That evening John was at his customary place in the Bush with Gwyn sitting across the table, each enjoying a restful quart of Nesta's best ale. As usual, Thomas was off at his literary tasks in the scriptorium of the cathedral. Nesta had been seeing to some kitchen crisis but was now sitting alongside John to hear his story about the murdered Keeper of the Peace and the outlaws' ambush on the Honiton road. Once again, he had decided to keep the news about Matilda to himself until he had a better idea of her intentions.

'A Welshman, you say?' she asked, when he related the tale of the stonemason's wound. 'Then he's almost a neighbour to my family, if he's from Cas-Gwent!' This was the Welsh name for Chepstow, a Saxon title meaning a market town, though the Norman owners now called it Striguil.

'He's now under the tender care of Brother Saulf in St John's,' said de Wolfe. This was a small priory just inside the East Gate, which had a few sick beds that were all Exeter could offer in the way of a hospital. 'He says that the spear wound is not deep arid hasn't damaged anything vital, as long as the flesh doesn't turn rotten.'

Nesta, ever sympathetic to people's misfortunes, especially if they were Welsh, began worrying about the man even though she had never met him nor even heard of him until ten minutes earlier.

'So far from home and no doubt concerned about his livelihood, if that's his working arm,' she fretted. 'How long will he be in St John's?'

'If he does well, no more than a few days, according to the monk,' said Gwyn. 'I'll call in tomorrow and see him. He may like to hear a word of his own language, though he speaks English well enough, after working so much in Gloucester.'

The landlady nodded her auburn head. 'I'll slip up there, too. He may not understand your uncouth Cornish accent!' she teased. 'I'll take him something decent to eat, too.'

The conversation drifted to other matters, and John related how he had been to see the sheriff earlier that day, to tell him of the death of Luke de Casewold, who was one of de Furnellis's law officers, though even Henry seemed vague about what the functions of these peacekeepers were supposed to be.

'I told him that he must report this killing as soon as he can to Winchester or London. The Chief Justiciar appointed these men, so he must be told that one has been slain, even if only to replace him.'

'And seek out those who did it,' grunted Gwyn. 'Otherwise the swine will think they can get away with anything.'

'What's this all about, anyway?' demanded Nesta. 'Is it connected with these misdoings in Axmouth?'

John nodded, waving his pot at Edwin for a refill.

'I'm sure it is. There's organised corruption going on from that port, but so far it's been impossible to get any proof. Everyone clams up like a limpet when you try to talk to them. I sometimes think the whole village is part of a big conspiracy.'

'Is this bailiff at the root of it, d'you think?'

John shrugged. 'He's a nasty, overbearing bully, but I can't bring him back in chains for that. There's nothing to show he had anything to do with the Keeper's death — neither is there for the portreeve, Elias Palmer, though he's such a poor apology for a man that I can't see him slaying so much as a cat, let alone killing de Casewold.'

'So what do we do next, Crowner? ' asked Gwyn in his slow Cornish voice.

John sighed and held up his palms. 'The sheriff is all for sending us down there with Ralph Morin, Gabriel and a bunch of their men-at-arms. We are to shake the place up and see what falls out, but I suspect that those bastards are too clever to leave any loose ends.'

'And if that doesn't work?' asked Nesta.

'Then all I can think of is acting like a mole-catcher.

If you can't see anything on the surface, you set a trap!'

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