The Tinner's corpse

CHAPTER ELEVEN

De Wolfe jogged up past Chagford’s church and along the fronts of several taverns to the small square, which was a hive of activity. Apart from the usual stalls and booths around the edge, a large temporary shelter was being erected in the centre, ready for the coinage ceremony, which was due to start the next day. A series of poles was being hammered into the packed earth, to support a flimsy roof of tightly woven reed panels to keep off the rain, should it sweep in from the moor.

The coinage would bring a great increase in trade apart from tin to Chagford: chapmen, hawkers, whores and other opportunists would arrive to take advantage of the hundreds of tinners who swelled the population for a couple of days, usually four times a year. The other Stannary towns of Tavistock and Ashburton experienced a similar periodic boom. Their coinage ceremonies took place at other times so that tinners who missed one occasion could travel further afield for their bars to be stamped and taxed.

However, de Wolfe had other things on his mind than coinage, and walked Odin sedately across the top of the square to reach the road that forked right then went downhill towards the small wooden bridge over the Teign, almost half a mile further on. He had asked directions near the square, and a few minutes later had left the straggle of houses and was passing between strip-fields and some common pasture leading into the river valley. The land all around was a random maze of hills and dells, deeply cut by streams. It was glowing with the pale green of spring, though in the distance the menacing grey-brown of the high moor was always visible.

A few hundred yards before the bridge, the track forked again and in the angle stood a long-house, with a substantial piece of land occupying much of the triangle between the two roads. Two cow byres and a couple of outhouses lay beyond the main building, which was of limewashed cob with a well-thatched roof. Long and low, there was a door and shuttered windows towards one end, indicating the living quarters, while the other half was for animals, with a large barn door in the pine end. A vegetable garden surrounded the house, and beyond a fence there was a paddock with some sheep, new lambs and a pen for swine. Though not on the same grand scale as the Knapman household, this looked a comfortable, prosperous dwelling.

There was a drystone wall around the land, with a loose hurdle acting as a gate across a gap in front of the house. John slid down from Odin and tied the stallion to a nearby sapling. He pulled aside the hurdle, and as he walked towards the door he heard voices at the back. Going round the stable end of the long-house, he saw three men sitting on a rough bench fashioned from a tree-trunk, each with a quart pot in his hand. They rose abruptly at his appearance and stood scowling at him suspiciously, until one recognised him. ‘Surely you’re the crowner, sir.’

De Wolfe walked along the back wall of the house towards them. ‘And you’re Stephen Acland — I saw you at my inquest and again at Crockern Tor last week.’

The powerful-looking man waved him to a place on the bench, and the other two, their suspicions allayed, waited until he was seated, then resumed their own places on the rough-hewn log.

Acland poured cider from a large crock into a spare mug and handed it to de Wolfe. ‘No need to ask why you’re here, Crowner. We were just chewing over the tragedy ourselves. These are are two of my overmen, upon whom I rely as much as I do on breathing and eating.’

The tough-looking pair nodded a greeting to the law officer, but said nothing.

‘You knew of the death very quickly,’ observed de Wolfe.

‘I happened to be in Knapman’s house last night when his brother arrived with the evil tidings. I was there to enquire whether anything had been heard of him since he vanished. By misfortune, I was there to hear the worst possible news.’

De Wolfe stared at Acland with disconcerting frankness. ‘You were very solicitous for his welfare, considering that the antagonism between you was common knowledge.’

Acland smiled thinly. ‘In times of peril and distress, neighbours in a small town like Chagford — especially fellow tinners — forget their rivalries and draw together for support, Crowner.’

‘It was just disputes over the tinning, then, nothing else?’ de Wolfe asked provocatively.

Acland refused to be drawn. ‘Of course! What else could it have been?’ he snapped, in a voice that was part-innocent, part-annoyed.

‘It is rumoured that you have a more than passing friendship with Mistress Knapman,’ de Wolfe said gently, only too conscious of his own problems where women were concerned.

‘This damned town thrives on rumour, Crowner! It’s true I have a great regard for Joan Knapman, more than her husband showed. She was lonely. Walter only married her to possess a beautiful ornament, to show off his wealth. I was sorry for her, stuck in that big house with only her feckless mother for company.’

John made no comment, but stored up the information for future use. ‘So have you any notion of who might have killed Knapman?’ he asked, using his well-tried method of shaking the tree to see what fruit might fall out.

Acland’s large face twisted into a wry smile. ‘Plenty of choice. He made many enemies while climbing to the top of the tinner’s tree.’

‘Any particular ones?’

‘Me for one, otherwise you wouldn’t be calling here, Crowner! The gossip has sent you to me quickly, I know that only too well. Yes, I had cause to detest the man. He was too greedy, he wanted the whole of Dartmoor tin for himself — you must have seen how he acted at the Great Court last week. But I’d not kill him for it.’ He considered his words for a moment. ‘This affair of the Lord Warden, it was Knapman who started the campaign against Richard de Revelle, and not just to get rid of the sheriff — though he should be ejected. It was a means to promote himself as Warden. Maybe you should put de Revelle on your list of suspects. He’s not taking kindly to any challenge to his authority in the Stannaries.’

De Wolfe again took the bull by the horns, ignoring the scowls of the other tinners. ‘Where were you all day on Monday?’

Acland shrugged. ‘Out and about, as always. I’d be riding around my workings at this very moment if it hadn’t been for this news of Knapman’s death.’

‘Where are these workings?’

‘Mostly around Chagford and this area of the moor. I’ve not the great number of streamings that Knapman possessed, just half a dozen. That’s why I offered to buy some of his boundings from him.’

‘Can you be more exact as to where you rode on Monday? And were you alone or can someone vouch for you?’

One of the other men, a rough-faced fellow with a marked bend in his nose, came to his master’s aid. ‘If Stephen killed Knapman, which would have been a kindness, he’s hardly likely to tell you that he was riding near Dunsford, would he? And, anyway, I can swear for him, I was with him from dawn till dusk on that day.’

De Wolfe had the impression that, if required, the man would have sworn that he had been with Acland anywhere between Cathay and Iceland. Seeing that he was getting nowhere with this line of questioning, the coroner turned the conversation into other channels. ‘What will happen now about the Wardenship, with Walter gone?’

‘The sheriff will carry on as before, no doubt, screwing as much profit out of the office as possible,’ sneered Bentnose.

‘He’ll not be challenged this year,’ admitted Acland sourly. ‘I’ve got neither the time nor the inclination to carry on where Knapman left it — but the system must change. We are going to petition the Chief Justiciar for a review of the Stannaries. Both Geoffrey Fitz-Peters and William de Wrotham know that de Revelle is crooked, so they will support a plea for a commission of enquiry.’

De Wolfe nodded approvingly. ‘I know the Justiciar well, so if you need more support I am willing to help. Though, knowing the speed at which the Curia Regis works, don’t expect anything to happen inside a couple of years.’ With the King permanently in France, Hubert Walter, the Chief Justiciar and Archbishop of Canterbury, was virtually the regent of England and had so much to attend to that the Devon tinners would not be high on his list of priorities, unless the supply of the precious metal stopped flowing.

The coroner downed the rest of his cider and stood up. ‘No doubt you’ll be at the inquest in the morning. I will hold it in that shelter erected for the coinage in the square.’

‘You’ll have a large audience, Crowner, with all the tinners and merchants there, ready for the coinage straight afterwards.’

As the tin-master walked with de Wolfe around the house to the gate, the coroner expressed his pessimism as to the outcome of the inquest. ‘Like the one on Henry of Tunnaford, it can achieve little in solving the killing. I cannot even amerce Dunsford for the murdrum fine, though Walter was certainly attacked there, for the body was found twenty miles away. It would lack any sense to blame Teignmouth because it is at the mouth of the same river.’

The other man, who was walking behind them, picked up on this theme. ‘Crowner, at Henry’s inquest, you should have returned a verdict against that whoreson Aethelfrith!’ he grated angrily. ‘Yesterday another of our blowing-houses was damaged up near Throwleigh. A rock was jammed in the bellows, which stripped the teeth from the gears driven by the water-wheel. A shepherd boy saw someone running away who could only have been that damned Saxon maniac.’

As they reached the hurdle, Stephen Acland pulled it aside. ‘He would take some catching, but the tinners could organise a posse to find him, even up on the high moor where he hides out.’

De Wolfe went to his horse and untied the reins from the tree. ‘I’ll consider that, though we’ve no proof that he was Henry’s killer. It will be up to the sheriff to bring him in, although, as Warden, he could take advantage of your offer to supply a hunting party from your men. I’ll talk to him about it tomorrow, as he’ll be at the coinage.’

With the three men staring after him, he wheeled Odin round and trotted back towards Chagford.

Thomas de Peyne sat in the living room of the church house, which, though small, was the best accommodation for a parish priest that he had seen since coming to Devon almost a year ago. It had been built recently, at the same time as the renovation of the church and, like St Michael’s, owed much to Walter Knapman’s donations.

‘He deserves to be in paradise, after his generosity,’ said Paul Smithson devoutly. ‘It is a great tragedy that he has been so brutally taken from us.’

Thomas, sitting with a cup of watered wine by the fire in the centre of the room, crossed himself with his free hand. ‘But God’s will must be done, brother. His death must have been ordained for some reason that is not for us to question,’ he said sententiously.

The priest, worried about his future stipend and share of the tithes, was not so sure about God’s will but held his tongue and turned the conversation in another direction. ‘Tell me, how does a Winchester priest come to be a coroner’s clerk in Exeter?’

De Peyne had had plenty of practice in fending off this question. ‘My health has not been good. You see this stiff leg and this bent shoulder? These were a legacy of the old phthisis, which carried off my poor mother.’ He stuck as near to the truth as he could, finding this to provide the most convincing story. ‘The duties in Winchester became too arduous for me, so it was arranged though my uncle, the Archdeacon of Exeter, that I be granted a year’s leave of absence to regain my strength in the fresh air of Devon. My ability with pen and parchment seemed appropriate to serve the new post of coroner here, as Sir John de Wolfe was a close friend of John de Alençon.’

Smithson nodded understandingly and went on to tell Thomas of the arrangements for the burial, which would take place straight after the inquest. ‘Poor Walter’s twin brother and his stepson will both be here from Exeter, so there is no point in delaying their return.’ He sniffed rather delicately. ‘It seems that the widow has no need of their family support, being a most resolute lady.’

The coroner’s clerk gained the impression that the portly priest was not wholly in favour of Joan Knapman’s fortitude and decided to explore the matter further. ‘She has not been married long, I gather?’

‘Less than six months. She came from Ashburton, you see.’

He said this as if the place was somewhere beyond Arabia, instead of being the coinage town only a few miles away.

‘Would you say the marriage has been happy?’ asked Thomas, delicately.

‘On Walter’s part, certainly. He was besotted with his new wife. I fear he spoiled her, giving her everything she asked for — and much that she did not.’

‘And on her side?’ the little clerk probed.

‘She was so reserved that it was hard to know what went on in her mind. I married them in the church and it would be unChristian of me to cast any aspersions, but I felt that it was no love match on her side. Walter was a wealthy tin-master, likely to increase in stature as time went on, and Joan was attracted by his riches and his prominence.’

Thomas accepted more wine and, suspecting that the priest had already imbibed plenty before he arrived, gambled that the drink would relax his reticence. ‘Tell me, if you think it not too impertinent a question between two men of the cloth,’ he said, with a deprecatory little cough, ‘is it likely that the widow may have been casting her eye elsewhere?’

He need not have trodden so warily, for Paul Smithson, his normally waxy face pink with good wine, gave him a knowing wink from one piggy little eye.

‘It was a poorly kept secret, especially for those with sharp sight. Mistress Joan had a fancy for another tin-master — unfortunately, her husband’s main business rival.’

‘You mean Stephen Acland? Did Walter know of this?’

‘I’m sure he suspected it, though his main quarrel with Acland was over the tin-works. Stephen wanted to expand and Walter kept beating him to obtaining new boundings on the moor, as well as refusing to sell some existing sites.’

‘Was their antagonism ever violent?’

‘Not beyond words, as you saw at the last inquest. Their men may have had a fight or two, I hear. Tinners tend to take sides very strongly when their masters fall out.’

The priest poured another full cup of wine for himself and drank most of it in a gulp. ‘Maybe Walter Knapman would have been glad to see Acland in a coffin, but I doubt the feeling was mutual.’

‘You hinted that Acland and Mistress Joan were … well, very friendly. Do you think it had gone beyond mere friendship?’ The crafty Thomas suddenly appeared to take fright at his own temerity. ‘But, please, I would not wish to probe any secrets of the confessional,’ he gabbled, crossing himself spasmodically.

Paul Smithson, cup in hand, bellowed with laughter. ‘Confessional? Our dear Joan never came near the shriving pew. Anyone with half an eye could see what was going on. She’d shake off her old mother, who slept every afternoon, and dismiss her maid when she went picking flowers or riding in the countryside. By some strange coincidence, she often rode past the long-house near Chagford Bridge.’

The clerk thought he had better change the subject, before the priest became too graphic. He suspected that the vicar had a rather unhealthy interest in the comely Widow Knapman and her love life.

‘This death must have saddened Walter’s brother and stepson,’ he hazarded.

‘I’ve not seen Peter Jordan yet, but Matthew seems upset — though, considering he’s Walter’s twin, he shows little emotion. I sense his main concern is with his future as a tin-merchant until the inheritance is settled.’

‘As twins, were they close?’

‘Not really. They grew up here, I’m told, but Matthew has been in Exeter these many years.’ He paused and wiped wine from his lips with an unsteady finger. ‘From time to time there are whispers that they were not really twins or that they had different fathers — though I doubt that Nature can allow that with twins.’

Thomas sat in the priest’s house for a time, drinking sparingly while Smithson became more inebriated, but although his tongue loosened, nothing more of any real interest emerged from him and eventually the clerk escaped. Drinking gave him no pleasure and usually a splitting headache. It certainly did nothing to raise his sombre mood, and sitting in the comfortable house with the complacent priest had merely emphasised Thomas’s ecclesiastical loss.

He had left his pony in the manor barton and started to trudge back the half-mile to report to John de Wolfe. Just as he was passing the churchyard, opposite the Crown tavern, he saw a dismal procession coming towards him from the square, at the bottom of which another road came in from the direction of Exeter.

First came a black horse ridden by a young man with a dark moustache, then a light cart pulled by a pair of sturdy ponies, driven by a lad perched on the front rail. As a rearguard, four sumpter horses with empty panniers were led by a middle-aged man, the carter Matthew had employed in Exeter.

In the cart, partly hidden from view by the wooden sides, was the body of Walter Knapman, shrouded in canvas. A black flag drooped from a staff lashed to the tailboard and a wreath of ivy leaves was hung on the tip of the draught-pole between the two horses.

The carter stopped his pack-train outside the alehouse to let the cart carry on alone. As the cortège passed slowly along the street, the street vendors and passers-by stopped and bowed their heads or doffed their caps in respect for one of their most prominent townsmen, as he made his last journey to his fine house.

Thomas waited until the cart turned down past a huge oak known locally as the Cross Tree, just outside the church. When it had vanished, he turned and plodded on to find his master.

There were still a few hours of daylight left when the coroner’s team met up in the hall of Wibbery’s manor to eat and talk about the day’s events. Gwyn had spent a few hours in Chagford’s taverns, now crowded to capacity by the arrival of tinners for the coinage ceremony the next day. The timber hall was rather small and old-fashioned, with a floor of beaten earth covered in rushes and a central fire-pit inside a raised rim of stones and hardened clay. A few trestle tables had been set up with benches and stools, and more trestles rested flat against the walls. The main door, sheltered by fixed screens, gave out on to the steps down to the bailey, and another smaller door led into the solar and the guest-room, where Wibbery and his wife lived.

The three from Exeter sat at the table nearest the fire, where logs and moor peat glowed cheerfully. A matronly servant from the outside kitchen brought food that made up in quantity for what it lacked in imagination, given the limited range of meat and vegetables remaining after the long winter. It suited Gwyn well, as his capacity for food and drink was phenomenal. Mutton stew by the quart and trenchers covered with boiled bacon were supplemented by cabbage and turnips in a wooden bowl the size of a small shield.

The bottler, a wizened old man with a cleft palate, brought a large earthenware pitcher of good ale, and a smaller one of rough farm cider, which had swirls of green filaments in the bottom that reminded the more fastidious Thomas of seaweed.

De Wolfe and the Cornishman ate heartily, while the clerk picked moodily at his food. As they ate, the coroner interrogated the others between mouthfuls, learning first from Thomas what he had extracted from the plump priest of St Michael the Archangel. Then Gwyn, whose afternoon in half a dozen alehouses had not diminished his appetite for Wibbery’s brew, reported what his spying had yielded. ‘There’s big trouble fermenting among the tinners. I thought Cornish fishermen were a rough lot, but some of these lads from the moor are tougher still.’

‘What kind of trouble?’ demanded de Wolfe.

‘They are resentful that Richard de Revelle remains Warden. Now that they’ve heard their best candidate to replace him is slain, they’re suspicious that it was done to put a stop to his campaign to take over the Wardenship. Some accuse the sheriff himself, others say that de Wrotham and Fitz-Peters are behind the killing.’

He stopped to stoke his mouth with bacon and cabbage, then sluice it down with a noisy gulp of ale.

‘Is that their main complaint?’

When he had swallowed sufficiently to speak, Gwyn continued. ‘No, they are mad at this Saxon fellow, the one they blame for damaging their workings. Many say that it must have been him who killed Henry of Tunnaford and others claim that he must also have slain Knapman. Some want to organise search parties to seek him out and lynch him.’

This fitted with what de Wolfe had heard, but he had always abhorred mob justice and decided to tackle de Revelle about keeping order in the county. ‘Did you hear anything about Walter Knapman? How do the tinners feel about his death?’

‘There’s a big split in their ranks. He employed over a hundred himself and they bemoan his passing, not least because they are unsure what will happen to their livelihood. Another lot work for Acland and are at daggers drawn with the Knapman crowd, especially as he was preventing Acland from expanding his business and giving them more work.’

Thomas roused himself to intervene. ‘Did anyone confirm what the priest suggested, that Acland was dallying with Walter’s new wife?’

The Cornishman wiped broth from his pendulous moustache with the back of a hand. ‘There were some winks and nudges when I asked if there was bad blood between the two tin-masters. One man in the Crown hinted that Knapman knew of his wife’s affair and was planning to set some of his men on Acland one dark night — but maybe that’s just alehouse romancing.’

‘Did you learn anything else of use?’

‘I heard some hints about brother Matthew. Some of the tinners — especially the loners who worked neither for Walter nor Stephen Acland — say that Matthew is crooked. He overcharges on his dues for selling their bars and fiddles the prices. I’m not sure how it works, but a couple of tinmen, after a few quarts, were grumbling about him. One suggested that he was even cheating his own brother.’

John pushed away his gravy-soaked trencher, unable to eat any more. ‘You seem to have wheedled a lot of gossip out of them in only a few hours.’

‘Didn’t need much wheedling — they drink like fish and their tongues are easily loosened. They seemed to take to me, especially when I let it be known that my own father was a tinner before he turned to fishing.’

‘They took to you because you’re even uglier and rougher than most of them,’ sneered Thomas, with a brief return to his old baiting of the coroner’s henchman.

For once, Gwyn looked pleased at the little clerk’s insult, hoping it heralded a rise in Thomas’s spirits. In spite of all the teasing and mock contempt Gwyn usually showered on him, he was quite fond of him, and since his recent depression had been concerned for his welfare.

The coroner hunched over his final pot of ale and, half to himself, mulled over the situation in and around Chagford. ‘We’ve got one apparently senseless slaying of an inoffensive tinner, old Henry, and, within days, a more subtle killing of his master. So are they connected and did the same hand kill both men?’

All he got by way of an answer from Gwyn was a grunt, and Thomas had subsided once more into silence.

‘There seems to be a possibility that this Aethelfrith could have killed the overman, as it’s in his territory, so to speak, and he’s been seen damaging other tin-workings. But killing Knapman seems unlikely — Dunsford is well away from his usual haunts and, anyway, it looks as if at least two men attacked Walter.’

‘Maybe there’s more than one mad Saxon on the moor?’ contributed Gwyn, using his dagger to slice a shrivelled apple from last autumn’s crop.

‘No one’s suggested it yet,’ said de Wolfe, with a shrug. ‘Now then, we’ve got Acland, who had a grudge over tin-works with Walter Knapman and who strongly objected to him campaigning to be the next Warden of the Stannaries. And he fancies Knapman’s wife, who is now an attractive and probably wealthy widow ready to snap up.’ He rasped his fingernails thoughtfully down the black stubble on his face. ‘And Gwyn says he heard murmuring about brother Matthew’s possible dishonesty, even towards his brother. It may be only a rumour, but if it is true, if Walter was beginning to suspect such treachery, would Matthew want him silenced?’

‘A bit far-fetched, Crowner,’ rumbled Gwyn. ‘I only repeated what I heard from two tinners, and it may have no damned truth in it at all.’

De Wolfe pondered this, then finished the last of his ale and stood up. ‘I’ll go down to the town and see the grieving family again. I’d better tell them of the arrangements for the inquest and the return to them of the corpse for burial.’

Thomas roused himself enough to tell his master that he had seen the carter arrive with Knapman’s body some time ago.

‘A young fellow on a good horse was escorting it along the high street.’

‘That will have been Peter Jordan, the stepson. I need a word with him, too.’

Leaving Gwyn still eating and his clerk perched despondently on his bench like a bedraggled sparrow, de Wolfe went down to the bailey and fetched Odin from the stable. He walked him slowly down the lane to Chagford, pulling his cloak around him as a chill wind began to blow from the east. Though signs of spring were everywhere, a great band of grey cloud was moving across the sky, with a pinkish tinge that suggested snow to come.

The town was full of men as he passed the square, some already drunk and quarrelsome even though it was only early evening. The booth for the coinage was finished and an overflow from the alehouses around it were using it for drinking, arguing and fighting. Gwyn had been right when he observed that tinners were a tough bunch — it was a night for local folk to stay behind their own front doors.

When he reached the Knapman demesne below the church, Harold came out of the back door as de Wolfe handed his stallion to an ostler’s lad. The Saxon looked even more tragic than before and was wringing his bony hands as he came across the yard. ‘The master has come home, Crowner. He’s in the main living room now.’ He spoke as if Walter was alive and waiting to receive guests. ‘Peter is here, as well as Matthew,’ added Harold, in a sepulchral voice.

He led the way indoors, and as John passed through the central passage he looked into the larger room and saw a shrouded body lying on the table, a lighted candle at head and foot. The parish priest and two old dames were with it, the one to shrive and the others to wash the tinner’s corpse.

The steward showed him into the other room, where a silent group sat around the large stone hearth that occupied most of one wall. Matthew Knapman and Peter Jordan rose as he entered and Harold pulled an oaken stool across for him to join the half-circle around the fire. The delectable Joan and her mother Lucy acknowledged him with nods and faint smiles, but Joan’s surly brother Roland merely scowled at him.

The coroner perched on his stool like a black raven among some pigeons and a woodpecker — Joan had discarded her mourning dress and was wearing a kirtle of iridescent green silk. John hoped that she would revert to her black for the inquest and burial tomorrow, or local tongues would wag more than ever.

He broke the silence by explaining that an inquest was necessary because of the violent death, and repeated his view that it was unlikely any light would be cast on the identity of the perpetrator.

‘The jury, in a death that happened miles away, will have no personal knowledge of the circumstances, and can only reach a verdict of murder by persons unknown,’ he said baldly.

‘What about this presentment business?’ asked the stepson. De Wolfe marked him down as a sharp, intelligent young man, even if the black moustache overpowered the narrow, pale face.

‘Your stepfather was certainly not a Saxon, though these days the distinction between Norman and English is becoming so blurred as to be often impossible to determine.’

‘It’s just another way to squeeze money from us. It should be abolished,’ complained Matthew. ‘The King uses every device to raise more cash for his wars in France. We still haven’t paid all the ransom money to the bloody Germans.’

De Wolfe ignored this valid but mildly treasonable remark and answered Jordan’s question. ‘I will have my clerk record that no presentment of Englishry was made, but in my discretion I will ignore the matter of the murdrum fine, as the inquest is not being held at Teignmouth.’ He hunched his shoulders and stuck his head out towards Matthew Knapman. ‘What is the situation about Walter’s tin-workings? My officer tells me that there is concern among his tinners for the security of their employment.’

‘I can look after the stream-workings, until things are settled,’ said Roland, harshly and unexpectedly. ‘I did some tinning once, as a prospector, before I became a tanner.’

There was a silence, but everyone ignored his offer. Matthew returned to the coroner’s question. ‘It depends on what’s contained in his will, if there is one. We have to consult the lawyer in Exeter to see if Walter made such provision.’

Lucy piped up from her corner by the fire. ‘If there’s any justice, his widow should inherit. That’s surely the law.’ Her son nodded vigorously, glaring around at the others.

Peter Jordan, his face suddenly flushed, shook his head. ‘It certainly is not, and if a will has been made, that decides the matter. If there is no will, the laws of intestacy hold.’

John had picked up a smattering of the law since he had been obliged to attend most of the court sittings in Exeter in all manner of issues. ‘It will be complicated, then,’ he ruminated. ‘Walter had no natural children, but had a brother, a stepson and a wife?’

‘And I am the nearest to being his child, by custom if not by blood,’ cut in Peter Jordan, to the accompaniment of a sneer from Roland.

De Wolfe shrugged, but before he could speak, Matthew thrust into the conversation. ‘I am his only blood relation and a closer one would be impossible to find — not only a brother but a twin, sharing the same womb.’

The coroner noted once again how the prospect of wealth made the silent garrulous and argumentative, rapidly thrusting mourning into the background. Perhaps Joan Knapman had the same impression, for she spoke for the first time. In spite of the softness of her voice, it held something that gripped the attention of the others.

‘Let us not soil the moment with concern about money. The men will work as they work every other day, until we know whether there is a will and what it contains. Let us put Walter in the earth before we begin fighting over his possessions.’

This sensible advice silenced the other claimants and the conversation was diverted by the arrival of the priest from the other room. He wore a long black tunic, carried a leatherbound missal and wore a narrow brocade stole around his neck as a concession to the occasion. For a few moments he discussed with them the nature of the service in St Michael’s. Then de Wolfe confirmed that the body must be moved from the house to the square, as the jury had to inspect it; immediately afterwards it could return to the church. ‘I shall hold the inquest two hours after dawn. It will last but a few minutes so we can clear from the square before the coinage begins.’

Matthew sighed. ‘It seems appropriate that Walter’s last appearance should coincide with a ceremony that he attended scores of times, central to the whole business of being a tinner. There will be many there to mark and regret his passing.’

De Wolfe hoped privately that the faction who were not so well disposed to the Knapman empire would behave themselves on the morrow.