The Tinner's corpse

CHAPTER TWELVE

Rolled in his cloak and lying on a hessian bag filled with straw, de Wolfe spent a comfortable night by the fire-pit in Hugh Wibbery’s hall.

He awoke as dawn was breaking, disturbed by a servant who brought sycamore logs to liven the peat fire that had smouldered all night.

Sitting up, he saw that all around the central hearth men were lying like the spokes of a wheel. Many were stirring, and gradually all clambered to their feet and made their way either outside to their tasks or to the trestles set against the walls, where bread, oatmeal porridge, cold meat, boiled salt fish and ale were provided to break their fast. There was no chapel in the manor house and John saw no sign of morning devotions, although Thomas was mumbling and crossing himself in a corner. When he had finished, he came to the table to pick listlessly at some bread and cheese.

Gwyn was his usual genial self, looking even more crumpled and dishevelled in his frayed leather jerkin and serge breeches, his wild auburn hair tangled from a night on the floor. ‘Are we going straight home after the inquest, Crowner?’ he enquired between mouthfuls of porridge, which he ladled from a wooden bowl with a spoon carved from a cow’s horn.

‘I want to stay awhile to see this coinage and to cast an eye over some of the tinners,’ replied de Wolfe. He omitted to say that he was interested to see how the sheriff fared with such ill-feeling against him. His abiding contempt for his brother-in-law made him always hopeful for the sheriff’s downfall.

Gwyn might have read his thoughts, for he asked why de Revelle was not staying overnight with Hugh Wibbery.

‘It’s not grand enough for him here,’ replied de Wolfe sarcastically. ‘I heard that he was going to lodge with de Prouz at Gidleigh Castle. They are bigger landowners than Wibbery and their place is more to Richard’s elevated tastes than this glorified farmhouse.’

‘Safer for him in a castle, too, if the tinners turn nasty against him,’ added the Cornishman perceptively.

‘Well, he’ll have to run the gauntlet of them in Chagford today. No doubt he’ll have brought plenty of his garrison to protect himself.’

And so it proved, for when they rode down to the town a little later, the square reminded the former Crusader of the plain before Acre. Not only had the sheriff brought troops under their sergeant, but someone told Gwyn that he also had the constable of Rougemont with him, the statuesque Ralph Morin, who was in charge of all military activity in the King’s castle of Exeter.

The small square was packed with people, and men-at-arms were strategically placed at intervals all around the margins, close to the stalls and booths, whose owners were hoping for a roaring trade all day. Carts and pack-horses pushed their way through the milling throng, and although it had been daylight for only a little over an hour, buying and selling was going on apace. De Wolfe and his officer left their horses with the morose Thomas in a side lane, and when they emerged, the coroner noticed that one thing was different from a usual market-day or fair in a country town: crude tin stood everywhere, each stack closely guarded by a couple of men. Some was piled into ox-carts or in panniers on sumpter horses, more was in hand-barrows, pushed by independent tinners, and yet more had already been off-loaded on to the edges of the square, where the dirty grey lumps of poorly smelted metal were stacked like misshapen bricks.

John stopped by one small heap, protected by a rough-looking old man who sat on the ground alongside his bars, chewing gummily at pieces of bread that he had torn off a loaf. As the old tinner stared up suspiciously at the coroner, de Wolfe picked up one of the lumps and inspected it with some curiosity. ‘This is the stuff that gives rise to all this trouble? It looks a pretty dull product to me.’ He weighed it experimentally in his hand. ‘But very heavy for its size. And dark grey and dirty.’

As the son of a tinner, Gwyn was able to explain, ‘They often call this crude metal “black tin”, for it’s full of impurities. It’s smelted in those blowing-houses by stacking tin shode in layers with charcoal and blasting it white-hot with bellows. Some of the charcoal and slag stays in each bar. That’s why it looks so dull and grimy.’

As they walked away, de Wolfe asked his oracle a further question: ‘I expected the ingots to be neat and regular, not those rough lumps.’

‘The moulds they’re made in are crude, that’s why. The furnaces in the blowing-houses are tapped off into cavities hacked into slabs of rock with a chisel, so the bar can only be as regular as the hole it’s poured into.’

Having exhausted the technicalities of tin production, de Wolfe led the way across to the temporary shelter that had been put up in the middle of the square. There were more stacks of tin piled around the edges, but the centre was kept clear by ropes stretched at knee height between the dozen supporting poles. Two of the sheriff’s soldiers patrolled the barrier, to prevent both tinkers and urchins from sneaking inside.

As they reached the rope, they were joined by a harassed-looking Sergeant Gabriel, who raised his hand in a stiff salute. ‘God’s breath, Crowner, this place is a cross between the May Fair and the battle of Arsuf!’ He was an old Crusader, too, and a strong bond of mutual respect had formed between the three men. De Wolfe gave the flustered soldier one of his rare grins. ‘What’s the problem, sergeant?’

‘The traders and hawkers want to sell anything to anybody. You — begging your pardon, sir — want to hold an inquest. Half the tinners want their bars coined and the other half want to attack the sheriff.’

Gwyn gave his friend a playful punch on the shoulder, which sent him staggering. ‘You should be happy, then, lad! Especially with the last part.’

Gabriel, a devoted royalist like de Wolfe, had no time for Richard de Revelle, but as the sheriff was his master, he had to keep his feelings well hidden.

‘Then the sooner we get this inquest out of the way the better,’ said the coroner.

Gabriel nodded. ‘The bailiff has rounded up a score of men for the jury — you said it was pointless fetching any from outside Chagford so they’re all locals, a few tinners among them.’

Gwyn went off to shepherd the jurymen into the enclosure, as John spotted a wedge of men-at-arms pushing through the crowd at the top of the square, making a way for two figures on horseback. They were Richard de Revelle and his constable, Ralph Morin, who alighted alongside him, leaving their steeds to be taken away by a soldier. Already the noise in the marketplace had changed in quality, with a growling tone and frank catcalls as the many tinners noticed the sheriff’s arrival.

‘Good day, brother-in-law,’ greeted the coroner. ‘I see you’ve not worn your chain-mail … Let’s hope that was not a mistake!’

The sheriff glowered at him and looked apprehensively around at the crowd. Many were staring at him aggressively and a few shook their fists at him, before melting away behind their fellows.

‘Damned rabble!’ muttered de Revelle, under his breath. ‘I trust you’ll not be holding up the start of my coinage too long, with this inquest of yours.’

‘Here’s the corpse now,’ reported Gabriel, as again his men forced a path through the throng, this time for a procession coming from the church. Four of Knapman’s overmen were carrying a bier, a device of dark oak that resembled a short wide ladder. Normally, it hung from the rafters at the back of the church, to remind folk of their mortality, but today it bore the shrouded body of Walter. Walking behind were the widow Joan, her mother and brother, Paul Smithson, Matthew Knapman and Peter Jordan, followed by Harold the steward and most of Knapman’s other servants.

At the enclosure, the bier was set down on a pair of trestles and the jury filed behind it, stepping over the surrounding ropes. Thomas de Peyne, who had handed over the horses to one of Gabriel’s men, came in with his writing bag and set up his pen and parchment on an empty cask, though there was little enough to be recorded in this particular case. As the crowd pressed in all around the temporary shelter, some sad, many angry and yet more indifferently curious, Gwyn yelled out his customary summons to attend the King’s coroner.

The sheriff and Ralph Morin stood to one side as de Wolfe went through a routine similar to that he had conducted over the headless body of Henry of Tunnaford. He dispensed with presentment of Englishry and again relieved the townsfolk by disregarding the murdrum fine. This time, the duty of the jury to examine the fatal wounds was less gory than before: they had only to file past the bier and look at the head wound and the back. Gwyn hauled the body on to its side, displaying the double-tracked bruise, which was now more prominent after death, though somewhat blurred by the staining where the blood in the body had sunk to the lowest level of the back. The two women were standing at one end of the bier and were spared this, as well as the sight of a tinge of green in the flanks.

There was little else to be said, and ten minutes later de Wolfe stood in front of the now covered corpse to give his views to the jurymen.

‘The purpose of this inquisition is to determine who the deceased was, and where, when and by what means he came to his death. His brother Matthew has identified the cadaver to spare his widow, and we all know it is that of Walter Knapman, tin-master of this town. Where he met his death is unknown, but from the presence of his horse near Stepford Mill, it must have taken place somewhere near there. However, I think it futile to bring the nearest vill, Dunsford, into the enquiry. Neither is it sensible to involve Teignmouth, where my officer, Gwyn of Polruan, has sworn it was found, in the presence of myself.’

He paused to sweep his eyes sternly over the jury. ‘The means of death is clear, in that the severe wound on the head, which you have all seen, either killed him directly or rendered him insensible, so that when he was cast into the river, he drowned. Either way it led to his death. You may then ask, was it caused by an accident, a fall from his horse on to stony ground?’

De Wolfe again glared around at his jury, as was his habit, defying them to contradict him.

‘If that was so, it cannot explain how he came to be in the river, instead of on the earth. The chance of falling from a horse directly into deep water and hitting his head seems remote.’

He scowled again along the line of faces. ‘Such a chance is abolished when you look at his back, where undoubtedly he has been smitten heavily by a staff or pike handle — the reason for his fall from his horse.’

Folding his arms under his wolfskin cloak, he walked along the line of jurors, his great beak of a nose thrust out towards them, shoulders hunched and lank black hair twisting over his collar in the cold breeze. ‘We have no club, no knife, no axe. Nothing as an instrument of death for me to declare deodand. But it is obvious that this was murder. Now deliver me your verdict, so that the facts, sparse though they are, may be recorded for the King’s justices — for that is why I am here, the custos placitorum coronae, keeper of the pleas of the Crown. If we discover the perpetrator of this evil deed, he will face the royal judges and be dealt with accordingly.’

As de Wolfe said this, he cast a sidelong glance at the sheriff, who scowled back, well aware that the coroner was taunting him with their endless dispute about jurisdiction over serious crimes.

At Gwyn’s prompting, the jury had a hurried consultation among themselves, and within a minute or two, the one Gwyn had ‘volunteered’ as foreman stepped forward. ‘We agree that he was murdered, Crowner,’ he said shortly.

De Wolfe nodded — he would have accepted no other response. ‘My verdict is that Walter Knapman was slain unlawfully and against the King’s peace by persons unknown, on the eleventh day of April in the sixth year of the reign of our sovereign lord King Richard.’

There was a sudden sense of anticlimax as the jury slunk away and the body was marched off on its bier to the church. The crowd around the enclosure, who had been muted while the inquest was in progress, returned to full volume, though the shouted abuse and jeers at the sheriff had subsided, mainly due to a number of men-at-arms sent into the crowd by Sergeant Gabriel to threaten any malcontents.

Richard de Revelle moved across to John as the covered space emptied. ‘That achieved little,’ he sneered. ‘I still fail to see why the Chief Justiciar bothered to revive this old ritual.’

‘It achieved little because there was little to achieve. It’s your task as keeper of the King’s peace, Richard, to seek out wrongdoers in the county of Devon. You discover the killers of old Henry and Walter Knapman and I’ll see that they come, fully recorded, before the King’s justices.’ They had been over this ground so often that de Wolfe could not be bothered to pursue it.

Failing to provoke his brother-in-law on that score, the sheriff tried another subject. ‘I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that Theobald Fitz-Ivo is doing sterling work in his new role as coroner. I have had good reports of him already. He has attended several hangings in Barnstaple and a mutilation in Lydford, all satisfactorily recorded by his bailiff.’

De Wolfe grunted, reluctant to acknowledge that the fat knight had any merit whatsoever. ‘But has he held a difficult inquest yet? Has he taken confessions from sanctuary-seekers or approvers?’

De Revelle gave the coroner one his patronising smiles. ‘Give the man time, John, he’s been in office only for the blinking of an eyelid. You were too ready with your criticisms and you should be more than happy that he has lightened your load. Matilda will be pleased, no doubt — you will be able to stay at your fireside and keep her company more often,’ he added, with a snigger: he knew only too well the true relationship between his sister and her husband.

Again, de Wolfe refused to rise to de Revelle’s mischievous bait. ‘I’ll leave you here to play at being Lord Warden, Richard,’ he replied evenly. ‘I need to go to the church now, to attend the disposal of Walter Knapman. One never knows what intelligence may be picked up on such occasions — and one of us has to try to find his killer.’

He collected Gwyn and Thomas, leaving the horses with Gabriel’s minion, and they walked to St Michael’s to stand at the back of the church, which was filled with mourners come to see off their well-known townsman. The corpse was now in a coffin at the foot of the chancel steps, and through the rood screen Paul Smithson could dimly be seen preparing the Host for the requiem mass.

When the parish priest came to the opening in the screen to commune with the congregation, de Wolfe became conscious of a stream of Latin being whispered just behind him and turned to see Thomas, with tears dribbling from his eyes, reciting the Office word for word with the priest. Once again, the coroner wondered at the intense emotion the ecclesiastical life engendered in his little clerk and he worried again for the man’s mental stability. He only hoped that John de Alençon would be able to do something to alleviate Thomas’s abject misery.

As the service droned on, Gwyn became restive and soon slipped away — de Wolfe suspected to the Crown alehouse across the road. Eventually, when the mass was over, the congregation trooped out to follow the coffin to a newly dug grave where, with due solemnity, the tin-master of Chagford was laid to his final rest.

Joan had reverted to a black gown and cloak, which contrasted sharply with the snow-white cover-chief and wimple around her head and face. As silent as ever, she acted the part of the bereaved widow admirably, though Thomas outdid her in tears. De Wolfe noticed that Stephen Acland was absent, either from discretion or because he wanted to be at the coinage, which would have started by now.

At the churchyard gate, the elegant widow courteously invited de Wolfe to the house for refreshments, but he declined, pleading that he had to return to the square to talk to the sheriff, though in fact he wanted to observe the coinage procedure. ‘And then I will be off to Exeter. God knows what problems may have accumulated there by now.’

At this, Matthew asked if he and Peter Jordan could ride back to the city with the coroner, both for company and to allay their uneasiness when going through the Dunsford area where Walter had been attacked: Matthew now claimed to favour outlaws as the culprits, rather than tinners. De Wolfe readily agreed, thinking that he might learn something useful during the few hours’ journey.

After promising to call back at the house in an hour or two, he walked with Thomas back to the square, where the rough enclosure was the centre of even more activity than before. Gwyn was already there, after a quick quart in the nearest tavern, so they pushed their way through to the shelter and stepped over the rope for a closer view of the proceedings.

Richard de Revelle was standing with Gabriel, Ralph Morin and two guards close by. For the moment, the tinners had given up their sneers and abuse, concerned with the coinage ritual, which meant the prospect of a cash return on weeks or months of hard work on the moor.

A line of men had formed along the length of the shelter, each standing or squatting alongside their pile of black tin, which they had carried across from carts, barrows or panniers. As each man was dealt with by the coinage officials, he vacated his place and someone else brought in his load of bars. Over half the total came from the workings of Knapman or Acland, but the procedure was the same: their employees did the fetching and carrying on a shuttle system from the large stocks standing at the side of the square.

Gwyn, who had seen the system operating in Cornwall, explained what was going on. ‘That’s the assay master, who is in charge of the whole proceedings,’ he muttered, pointing at a grey-bearded man dressed in a brown tunic and grey hose with cross-gartering down to his stout shoes. He wore a close-fitting black cap, tied under his chin with tapes, and round his neck hung a chain of refined tin with a large medallion denoting his official status. ‘The others are the Steward, who is responsible for the register, the Receiver and the Controller, with their pair of clerks. They all have to read and write, for the weight of each bar has to be agreed by them all and written down against the name of the owner and the quality of the metal.’

De Wolfe noticed that the Controller, a stocky man in a long leather apron, was fiddling with a large steel-yard suspended from one of the roof beams. It was a weighing scales, with one short arm carryinga flat pan and a longer arm from which hung a smaller weight-pan that could be slid back and forth on the yard. ‘His main concern is that King’s beam,’ explained Gwyn. ‘He brings it here with a sealed box of weights that has been checked by the mint in Winchester.’

The assay team worked with brisk efficiency, born of years of practice. John watched as the Steward went to a fresh applicant at the rope and dictated his name to the clerk, who allotted simple code letters to the tinner, usually based on his initials. The Receiver, another grizzled veteran in a leather apron, took the bars over the rope and rapidly impressed the code on to the soft metal with a hammer and set of dies. Then he handed them up in quick succession to the Controller, who weighed them on the beam, had it checked by the Steward and called out the result to the clerk, who entered it on his roll. The bar was passed quickly to the assay master, who squatted on a small milking stool before a large log of hard oak, which acted as an anvil. With a hammer and small chisel, he dextrously knocked off a small corner of the bar, exposing the shinier grey tin underneath. Immediately, he exchanged the chisel for dies and struck two other impressions on the bar, one the King’s mark of a couchant lion, and another a set of dots, the purpose of which was incomprehensible to de Wolfe.

‘What’s that one for?’ he grunted to Gwyn.

‘The quality mark, Crowner, what he considers to be the purity of the metal, which will affect the price it gets from merchants like Matthew Knapman.’

‘How does he know that?’ demanded de Wolfe.

Gwyn chuckled. ‘Black magic, some say. But he’s been doing it for years. A good assay master is worth his weight in gold, let alone tin. He can tell by the way the chisel cuts the metal, its hardness, even the sound it makes when it’s sliced, as well as the colour and the amount of impurities on the surface.’ Gwyn sounded almost wistful, as his mind went back to the days of his youth, before his father left tinning for the dangers of the sea.

De Wolfe was almost as impressed by the speed of the operation as by the ability of the assay master to value the quality of the bars. With many hundreds if not thousands of ingots to deal with in two days, the rapidity of the process was remarkable. The calling out of the weights, the clang of the bar into the weighing pan and the steady pounding of the hammers as they embossed the tin were almost hypnotic.

Outside the ropes there was now equally frantic activity, as tinners and porters hurried back and forth across the square with piles of bars, fetching them for assay and returning them to the stacks at the edge of the roadway. Mugs of ale and cider were ferried across to the coining team, as were loaves and pasties, so that the labouring officials could grab a bite or swig from a drink between their incessant handling of the black metal.

After a few minutes, de Wolfe noticed that the sheriff, who had so far ignored him, seemed restive, and soon afterwards he left the enclosure with Morin and two men-at-arms and vanished up the high street, no doubt to seek refreshment in one of the taverns. The novelty of watching the coinage soon palled on John, too, and he turned to Gwyn to give him his orders. ‘I must go back to Exeter this morning. I’ll take Thomas with me, but you must stay until the coinage has finished tomorrow. I’m told the sheriff is going to stay until the end, to emphasise his role as Lord Warden, so maybe you can ride back with Gabriel and his men behind de Revelle and the constable.’

‘What do you want me to do here?’ asked Gwyn, quite happy to spend a day and a night in a town with six ale-houses.

‘Just keep your eyes and ears open, especially in the taverns. Drink loosens tongues and I want to know what the tinners are saying about these killings. The answer must surely be up here in Chagford, not in the city. But I can’t spend all my time here — there’s other work at home, to say nothing of my wife’s tongue.’

Turning his back on the banging, shouting and clanging, de Wolfe took Thomas to retrieve their horses from the side-street, then to collect Matthew and Peter Jordan from the Knapman house ready for the ride to Exeter. He left his officer without a thought for his well-being: after all, Gwyn was more than capable of looking after himself in most situations.