The Sanctuary Seeker

Chapter Eight In which Crowner John disputes with the sheriff

By noon next day, John had been told of the events at Honiton. He had been to one of his reading lessons in the cathedral cloisters and, on his return at mid-morning, had found Thomas and Gwyn waiting for him in the gatehouse chamber.

The clerk, who had timorously waited for full daylight before setting foot outside the door of the inn, had examined the scene of his ordeal before leaving Honiton. To his joy, he had discovered his pathetically few coins trodden into the mud alongside an ominous patch of blood from the wound Fitzhai’s sword had inflicted on the arm of one of the attackers.

John sat silently behind his trestle table while Thomas related his story, in which he made much of his assault and the valiant resistance he had put up against at least four desperadoes. He ended his tale with the sign of the cross and waited expectantly, hoping for some expression of concern.

The dark, hawkish figure behind the table glared at him. ‘And you let this fellow get away knowing nothing but his name?’

Thomas tried to look hurt, but his wry neck and squint spoiled the effect. ‘He got up and left as soon as I questioned him. Said he wanted nothing to do with the law. But I’m certain he knew the dead man – he had said so at the outset.’

Crouched on a box across the small room, Gwyn gave one of his meaningful grunts. ‘I should have gone to Honiton, not him. But I remember there was a Fitzhai at Ascalon, in the last weeks before we left Palestine, though I can’t recall what he looked like.’

John rose impatiently and walked to the slit in the boarded window to peer down at the inner ward of the castle.

‘Why was this Fitzhai in Honiton? Was he staying at the inn?’

The clerk fidgeted on his stool. ‘I asked that of the innkeeper. He was loath to tell me anything, except that every man’s business is his own.’

John came across the room and towered over the diminutive Thomas. ‘So we have lost him, have we? Our only witness and he walks out of the door.’ He swung round to Gwyn, whose red hair was glinting in a rare ray of sunshine. ‘Are there any Fitzhais in that area?’

Gwyn shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘Don’t know of any hereabouts. But I’m no expert on Norman families.’ His slight emphasis on ‘Norman’ was a subtle token of the resentment that still lingered among the native population, Saxon and Celt alike.

John rested his buttocks on the edge of the table, which creaked ominously. ‘Then I’ll have to ask the sheriff for help. He should know all the manorial holders in his own county. I thought I did too, but Fitzhai is new to me.’ He jerked away from the protesting trestle and stalked to the door. ‘I’ve given you those names from yesterday’s inquest, Thomas. Get them down on a roll, with the usual style of words. Tostig is committed to prison to await trial and Eadred of Dawlish is placed in the care of his assailant, once the holy sister says he can be moved.’

At the head of the stairs, he turned with an afterthought. ‘And record that the innkeeper, Willem of Bruges, can distrain on the family to get his board and lodging for the wounded man. Now I’m off to see Richard de Revelle.’

John was tempted to divert to the Bush to see Nesta and take an hour’s ease with some beer and a meal. Yet the prospect of having to negotiate again with his brother-in-law, who would be sure to put every difficulty in his path, decided him on a less inviting diversion. On his way down the high street, he turned into St Martin’s Lane and entered his own front door.

At least he had slept in his wife’s bed the previous night and attended his reading lesson – which had been her idea to improve his mind and social status – so their recent frigidity had warmed slightly. He walked through the entry passage and out through the back door into the yard, where Mary was throwing washing over some bushes to dry. He tickled Brutus’s ear and pecked the girl’s cheek before he climbed the outside wooden staircase at the back of the house to the solar. At the top, a heavy door led into the square room supported on timber stilts.

Inside, Matilda was working at her embroidery, the usual pastime for a woman of her standing. She was sitting near the window, which was the only one in the house to have glass in it – a useless luxury, John thought, as the distorted view it gave through its thick, curved surface was merely that of their back yard and the roofs of nearby houses. A large low bed, a table and two chairs completed the furnishings. Sombre tapestries hid most of the timbered walls except where, on the wall opposite the window, a shuttered opening looked down into the hall below.

After some strained but civil words of greeting, John lowered himself on to the other chair. ‘I need your advice,’ he began lamely.

Matilda’s eyebrows rose and she looked up from her needle. ‘Since when have you needed my opinion? You’ve gone your own way these sixteen years.’

Swallowing both a retort and his pride, he tried to look conciliatory. ‘About your brother, Matilda. We have to work together, for the sake of the King’s peace, if nothing else.’

‘And for the sake of family peace, I should hope,’ she snapped, conscious that, for once, she had the upper hand over her husband.

‘I don’t enjoy these futile squabbles with the sheriff,’ he lied. ‘It’s a question of jurisdiction between us, you see.’

Matilda stared at him suspiciously, her needlework forgotten. ‘What d’you mean, jurisdiction?’

John stretched out his long legs, the back flap of the grey surcoat falling to the floorboards. ‘The new Articles say that all violent and uncommon deaths be investigated by the coroners.’ She grudgingly nodded agreement. ‘And, furthermore, we are strictly to record all such happenings – and many more besides – to present to the King’s justices when they visit.’

‘Of course. Everyone knows that.’

He silently disagreed with her, but kept his peace. ‘Your brother seems to think that the new law is a personal intrusion into his powers.’ And into his purse, thought John, but kept that to himself too.

His wife put her needle to the linen and fiddled with the thread. She was in something of a dilemma, as although she was devoted to her brother she had ardently supported her husband’s elevation to the coronership. But both she and the sheriff had assumed that his appointment had been to a sinecure and had never dreamed that John was going to pursue his duties with such unrelenting zeal.

‘So what advice do you want from me?’ she asked uncertainly. He leaned back and locked his hands behind his head, his fingers buried in his thick black hair. As he told her the story of the dead Crusader and the trail that led to Honiton, she listened and watched him covertly.

What did she feel for this hawk-like man, who had been joined to her for almost half her lifetime? Love was for the young and for illicit dalliance after marriage, and the purpose of marriage was to weld together family lands and fortunes, to produce sons, to gain political advantage. Love was the last consideration. She and John had been joined by their parents for mutual links between two Norman families – even though John’s mother was Cornish, which still rankled with Matilda.

The de Revelles were a well-known, moderately wealthy clan, and Simon de Wolfe, John’s father, had had the best part of the marriage bargain when he had arranged to join his son to Matilda. True, the de Wolfes had two manors at Stoke-in-Teignhead but they were far from notable county figures. As for getting him sons, she had failed miserably – unless the fault lay with him. Their sporadic and unenthusiastic coupling in the first years of marriage had produced no offspring and had declined from lack of interest to their current celibacy. She was well aware that he satisfied his appetites elsewhere, as did most men, and she herself had had several liaisons when John was away at either the Irish wars or in the Levant, but it had been several years since she had bothered to trail her skirt at anyone.

And here he was now, her tall, dark man, telling her some interminable tale about a rotting corpse in a Dartmoor brook. ‘Matilda, I need de Revelle’s help to find Fitzhai.’

His wife failed to see the problem. ‘Well, just ask Richard to seek the man out.’

With difficulty John concealed his impatience. ‘Only yesterday we had a public shouting match about who was to hang a felon. Richard and his miserable portreeve declared that coroners were a waste of time and money and that the sheriffs should continue to have total jurisdiction, in spite of the royal command.’

Matilda could see that if her brother had his way her husband’s new role would be short-lived. ‘What do you want him to do, then?’ she asked, briskly.

‘Seek out this Alan Fitzhai in or about Honiton. I can’t do it, with only Gwyn and that poxy clerk at my command. Thomas ferreted him out, then lost him. No use sending him back.’

‘So send that lout of a Cornishman instead,’ Matilda snapped.

‘He can’t drag the fellow back alone, if he refuses to come, as the clerk claims he will. A sergeant and two men are needed to flush him out and bring him here. That’s sheriff’s business.’

His wife looked at him with distrust, her pale hair showing stiffly under the white linen coverchief around her head. ‘So what help do you want from me?’

‘Richard will undoubtedly refuse me when I ask so come with me and shame him into doing what the King’s law directs him to perform. Otherwise this crowner’s appointment is worth nothing.’

Matilda’s needle was still for a moment. But she did not doubt that she had to support her husband or lose face over her championship of his appointment.

Suddenly she stood up and laid her work on the table.

‘Right, husband, no time like the present.’