The Tinner's corpse

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Friday, the fifteenth of April, dawned grey and cold on Dartmoor, as if the spring was making up for the relatively mild winter by being spitefully unseasonable. Snow covered the moors, and even in the greener valleys around the edges of the huge wasteland the new buds and peeping flowers were powdered with white. The lowering grey clouds threatened more snow to come, and as Gwyn of Polruan rode his mare down from Wibbery’s manor barton to the town, a few flakes fluttered on the wind that moaned softly around him. The big Cornishman pulled up the hood of his tattered leather shoulder cape and plodded on philosophically, inured to the weather of a dozen countries after years of campaigning.

He was not clear as to why the coroner had left him in Chagford, but for some reason John de Wolfe wanted an eye kept on the tinners and the sheriff until they had all dispersed after the coinage. Judging from the amount of metal left for assaying last evening, Gwyn estimated it would finish by the middle of the day and then he could turn for home and hearth, to be with his wife and children in St Sidwell’s.

There was a livery stable at the near end of the high street and there Gwyn left his mare, knowing that the coroner would reimburse him the halfpenny that shelter and forage would cost. He walked on to the square and, for the next hour or so, stood idly watching the coinage process as it worked its way through the diminishing piles of black tin ingots. Although many miners had already left Chagford after their bars had been coined, there were still plenty of men around and the alehouses were full, as Gwyn discovered when his insatiable hunger and thirst drove him to the Crown for relief. As the coroner had ordered, he eavesdropped on as many conversations as possible and gossiped with a number of men, using his boyhood experience in Cornwall with his father to masquerade as another tinner. However, his efforts produced nothing new, only repetition of anger against Richard de Revelle’s clinging to the Wardenship, complaints about the rate of coinage tax, and the widespread conviction that Aethelfrith the Saxon had been behind Henry’s death and the damage to their tin-workings.

When Gwyn came out of the tavern, the snow had increased markedly. A keen east wind was driving it into little drifts against walls and hedges and the ground was already covered to a depth of a couple of inches. As he tramped back over to the square to see the last of the coinage, his riding boots squeaked hollows into the fresh snow and white flakes lodged in his great moustache.

Under the cover of the enclosure, the assay master and the Controller toiled away with the Steward and Receiver to finish the work, so that they and the tinners might leave for home before the moor became impassable. Another hour went by before the sheriff put in an appearance, together with Geoffrey Fitz-Peters from Lydford. They had stayed in the warmth and comfort of de Prouz’s castle at Gidleigh until Richard de Revelle calculated that the coinage was nearing its end and he could put in a final appearance with the least personal discomfort.

As they all stood watching, and listening to the monotonous rhythm of the hammer, chisel and chanting of the clerks as they repeated the weight and quality of each ingot, Gwyn became gradually aware of a different, more distant noise. Above the undulating soft whistle of the wind, he heard a distant growling. As the minutes went by, it strengthened into the shouting of an angry crowd.

Now the heads of those around him began to lift, as they also sensed the approaching tumult. Even the coinage team stopped work to listen. With the hammering quieted, the shouts of a mob became clear and Gwyn saw the sheriff stiffen and motion to Sergeant Gabriel to bring his men-at-arms closer into the coinage shelter. Only half a dozen soldiers remained: Ralph Morin had left at dawn for Exeter with the rest of the men, not wishing to leave Rougemont Castle bereft of its garrison. With many others, Gwyn stepped out into the swirling snowflakes and began to walk up to the top of the square, where he could look down the street to where the yelling rabble was rapidly approaching.

A crowd of men, perhaps thirty in number, was milling along the manor road, clustered around someone in the centre. As they came nearer, it was clear that they were all tinners, both from their dress and the threatening way they were yelling abuse at whoever was being dragged along among them. Snow plastered their cloaks and hoods, which suggested that they had come down from the high moor, but in their anger and excitement they were oblivious of the weather.

Gabriel appeared alongside him, sent by the sheriff to see what was happening. ‘What in hell is going on, Gwyn?’ he muttered, looking at the approaching mob, who were dragging a man on the end of a rope.

‘I don’t know, but I don’t like the look of it.’

As the mass of men neared the square, the tinners who had just left the coinage were joined by many more flooding out of the alehouses, attracted by the uproar. Some were the worse for drink only half-way through the morning. They shouted questions to the mob, whose answers caused many more to merge into the swirling mass. By the time the crowd turned into the square, there were almost a hundred heads bobbing around, pushing and shoving to see the hapless captive in the centre.

‘You’d better do something about this, Gabriel — and quick!’ growled Gwyn.

‘I’ve only a handful of men — just enough to escort the sheriff over to Lydford,’ said the sergeant, apprehensively.

The rabble now almost filled the small square, jostling its way to the front of the coinage enclosure. Gabriel pushed his way round the edge of the crowd to reach Richard de Revelle, both to guard him and to get some instructions. Gwyn followed him, his huge shoulders barging a way through the agitated mob. A few men rounded on him, but he shoved them aside, his ham-like hands thrusting their chests or even faces out of his path.

The crowd came to a stop at the rope girdling the shelter and rapidly flowed all around it, like flood water encircling an island. When Gwyn got to the rope he could see de Revelle, pallid-faced, pressed alongside the manor lord of Lydford at the end of the shelter. Gabriel and his handful of soldiers clustered around them, their eyes roving around uneasily beneath their basin-like helmets. They wore no chain-mail, except iron plates on the shoulders of their boiled leather cuirasses, and their hands rested nervously on the hilts of their sheathed broadswords.

The assay officers gave up any attempt to continue their work, and as they withdrew to the back of the shelter, there was a sudden movement in the mob and a dishevelled figure was ejected to the front. His hands were lashed behind his back with a rope, the other end grasped by a burly tinner. Two others had dragged him to the front by his arms and now stood alongside him, shaking him roughly by pulls on his wrists. As Gwyn watched, another drunken roughneck left the edge of the crowd, and came to give the prisoner a punch in the face.

‘Here’s the bastard who’s caused all the trouble — and a bloody murderer into the bargain!’ he yelled, and sank back into the crowd.

Now Gwyn could see the victim more clearly, as he stood defiantly facing the shelter, snow spattering his hair and blood running from the corner of his mouth, where the blow had cut his lip.

He was tall and spare to the point of emaciation, with long, tangled grey hair around a gaunt, wild-looking face. Gwyn estimated his age at well over sixty, and in spite of his haggard leanness, he had a leathery hardness that told of his solitary survival on Dartmoor. This could be none other than Aethelfrith, the crazy Saxon — confirmed by the shouts and jeers that came from the mob.

‘Here he is, Sheriff! This is Aethelfrith, God rot him! You’re the Lord Warden, so pronounce his fate to us — or we’ll do it for you!’ yelled the man, a big, black-bearded tinner from near Lydford.

This triggered a fresh outburst of shouting from the crowd, directed as much at de Revelle as at the Saxon, a mixture of jeers and challenge.

The sheriff stood undecided, staring at this unexpected drama. As he seemed tongue-tied, Geoffrey Fitz-Peters, who had his own eye on the Wardenship, stepped forward to confront the tinners. ‘What’s been happening, men? Where did you find this man?’

Aethelfrith was given such a push from behind that he staggered and fell to his knees in the snow. Somehow, though, he kept a stolid dignity, glaring up at Fitz-Peters with silent defiance on his angular face.

‘Caught red-handed this time!’ yelled one of the men who had held his arms. ‘Smashing up one of the settling-troughs with an axe, up at Scorhill on the North Teign, not three miles from the town here!’

‘We’re going to hang him right now, Warden. You can pass that judgement on him, if you like — but hang he will, within the hour, whether you wish it or not,’ boomed Blackbeard.

There was an even louder babble of cries, all bloodthirsty demands for Aethelfrith’s life.

‘He slew Henry of Tunnaford, right enough!’ yelled one. Others screamed that he must also be the killer of their master, Walter Knapman, and yet more yelled that the damage to their stream-works and blowing-houses must be put down to the mad Saxon.

The mood became uglier as each man provoked his neighbours, until the surging mob threatened to break through the coinage rope. Even the supports of the enclosure were shaking with the press of men against them, snow falling off the edges of the flimsy roof. Geoffrey Fitz-Peters judged that this was no time to play either hero or candidate for the Wardenship and he stepped back to where the sheriff was trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, with his sergeant and soldiers clustered around him.

‘You’ll have to say something to them, Richard. They’re in an ugly mood,’ he advised, in a low voice. Grasping his arm, he pulled de Revelle forward a few paces and the sheriff had no option but to confront the crowd.

‘What proof have you, men?’ he shouted, over the din. ‘Was he caught actually wreaking damage?’

There was a cacophony of yells, all confirming the Saxon’s guilt. Aethelfrith was now jerked back to his feet by two men on each side of him. He began to say something, but the tinner on his left gave him another punch in the mouth that silenced any confession or denial.

Nervously, de Revelle tried to assess his safest course of action. Already deeply unpopular, he feared that these unruly tinners might turn on him if he crossed them. With only a handful of men-at-arms, a hundred angry moor-men would swamp any resistance, and though he was the county’s law-enforcer, he had no wish to take any chances with his own life and limb against this enraged mob. However, he decided to make a token gesture towards the proper course of justice. ‘If he has done these things, then he should be brought to the Shire Court — or even before the King’s justices,’ he shouted over their heads, conveniently forgetting his usual antipathy to the royal courts. His words were met with derision, and the hisses, catcalls and yelled abuse became even more virulent. The mob surged forward again, and this time the rope was torn from one of the pillars and the front line of men erupted into the coinage enclosure.

De Revelle stepped back rapidly and turned to Fitz-Peters, shrugging his shoulders in desperation. ‘They’ll not listen to reason now,’ he said.

Gwyn watched and listened with increasing anxiety, wishing that the formidable coroner was here to control the situation. In de Wolfe’s absence he felt obliged to do his best and pushed himself along towards the men who were pinioning Aethelfrith.

Before he reached them, his captors started to pummel the old man about the head and chest, yelling at him to confess. At last, the Saxon started to yell back, in a clear, deep voice that held no trace of fear, though he had to spit blood every few words to clear his lips. ‘Aye, you Norman swine, I’ll confess! Confess to being a descendant of the true race who was here before you French bandits came to steal our land! Confess to loving the very ground that we held for centuries. Confess to having watched you bastards kill my son on the moor twenty years ago for trying to claim his own stake in the tinning!’ He got no further, as someone struck him with a club on the side of the head, a blow that sent Aethelfrith staggering, held up only by his tormentors.

This was too much for Gwyn and, with a roar like a bull, he drove his way forward and tore the club from the hand of the assailant. ‘Stop this!’ he boomed. ‘Every man deserves a fair hearing before he’s condemned.’

‘Who the hell d’you think you are?’ screamed an enraged Blackbeard.

‘The coroner’s officer — King Richard’s coroner!’ Gwyn looked a formidable figure, topping most of the tinners — many of whom were big men — by half a head. But their mood was so inflamed that they took unkindly to any interference.

‘Get out of the way, man, this is not crowner’s business. These are the Stannaries, and we are a law unto ourselves,’ snarled one of the men who was gripping the Saxon.

‘Not where it concerns life or limb. The King’s law runs there and well you know it. Ask the sheriff — he’ll tell you.’ Gwyn turned to wave an arm at where de Revelle skulked at the end of the enclosure.

Reluctantly, de Revelle nodded. ‘He’s right, but I’ve already told you that.’

This was met with more jeers, and the burly man with the jet beard and moustache gave Gwyn a violent buffet in the chest. ‘Clear off, damn you! Stop trying to interfere in what’s none of your bloody business.’

For answer, the Cornishman threw a massive arm around the other’s neck, gave him a punch in the kidneys that should have felled a donkey and threw him to the ground. Amid bellows of rage and clutching hands, Gwyn was pulled back, while the bearded man climbed painfully to his feet.

Suddenly, there was a flash of steel as Gwyn’s adversary reached behind him and pulled a dagger from his belt. With a furious yell, he launched himself at the Cornishman, the knife flashing towards his heart. The thick leather of Gwyn’s jerkin took the point, and though it penetrated enough to slash skin and muscle, it went no further. With his own roar of rage, he tore free from those hanging on to his arms, and grabbed the wrist holding the dagger. With his other hand, he smashed Blackbeard on the side of the head, just behind the ear. The man crumpled to the trampled slush underfoot and lay motionless. Then, huge as he was, Gwyn had no chance against the fury of a hundred tinners and he vanished to the floor under a press of bodies, all trying to beat him to death.

As so often happened, snow on Dartmoor meant rain in Exeter, John de Wolfe went about his business that day in an intermittent cold drizzle that soaked his cape and turned the streets into a sticky morass of mud and filth. The previous night, he had fallen dog-tired on to his bed, too weary even to respond to Matilda’s customary nagging. He told her briefly about Thomas’s dive from the cathedral gallery, but her snubbing response seemed to indicate that she would have been interested only if his attempt had succeeded.

Even before he had finished an early breakfast, one of the town bailiffs arrived to report a fatal accident on the quayside, where the wheel of an ox-cart had collapsed and a load of stone imported from Caen had fallen on a workman. John went to inspect the scene and look at the body but, missing both Gwyn’s help and Thomas’s scribing ability, decided to postpone the inquest until he knew when his clerk would be available.

With this in mind, he went from the quayside up to St John’s Hospital to see how the little man was faring. John de Alençon was there already, and de Wolfe was surprised and gratified to find that de Peyne’s mood had improved markedly, even if his skin and muscles were still crying out in protest.

‘He can go home when he chooses,’ said Brother Saulf encouragingly. ‘There is nothing seriously amiss. The shock has passed and he has no broken bones, only bruises, though he’ll suffer a couple of days’ aches and stiffness. As the Archdeacon has been telling him, the age of miracles is certainly not yet over.’

As the two Johns left the little priory together, the coroner said how glad he was to see such an improvement in his clerk’s melancholy.

De Alençon smiled, his blue eyes twinkling in his lean, ascetic face. ‘Though I truly believe that such escapes are ordained by the Almighty, I must admit to labouring the point somewhat to my nephew. His conviction that his miraculous deliverance is a sign from above has greatly lightened his mind.’

The coroner gave his friend a lopsided grin. ‘Thank God for that — and I mean that literally, John. But is there no real hope of his ever being accepted back into Holy Orders?’

‘Not for some time — and certainly not in Exeter as long as the present chapter contains certain people.’

‘Speaking selfishly, though I am sorry for Thomas, I would be lost without his skills,’ mused de Wolfe aloud, ‘so let’s see what a year or so might bring. Perhaps eventually he could return to Winchester.’

They parted at Martin’s Lane, where the coroner collected Odin and rode out of the city to the gallows beyond Magdalene Street. Here he witnessed two Friday executions, one of an outlaw who had been caught robbing a travelling merchant of his purse holding fourteen pennies, two more than the statutory shilling that meant a felony and the death penalty. It had been a toss-up as to whether to behead him for being a captured outlaw or hanging him for the felony, but the Shire Court, under Richard de Revelle, discovered that the fee for hanging was less. As the man had no property, John had no interest in the matter, other than eventually to record the event on his rolls.

The other execution was of a weaver who had tried to strangle his wife in a fit of anger when he discovered that she had committed adultery with his brother. De Wolfe had tried hard to delay the trial until the King’s justices came for the Eyre of Assize, but as the usual waiting stretched into months with no sign of their arrival, the sheriff and the burgesses had insisted on summary conviction in the Shire Court. As the weaver had a house and a workshop, John would have to assess his property and record it for the judges, who would decide how much to confiscate for the Crown and how much — if any — to leave for the family of the sinful widow. But with Thomas out of commission, there was little he could do for now: his own skills with a quill and ink were still negligible.

On the way back from the gallows, he passed by the South Gate and went through the fields and garden of Southernhay to reach the Water Gate, which had been driven through the angle of the city wall, at the top of the slope leading down to the quay. From there he went to the house of Matthew Knapman and found the tin-merchant in his ground-floor warehouse, with Peter Jordan and a burly Saxon workman. They were stacking and tallying bars, some of black tin, which had just arrived from yesterday’s coinage at Chagford. Others, kept separate, were the cleaner, shinier ingots from the re-smelting, ready for export.

Matthew, stout and red-faced, put down the notched tally-stick and his knife and waved the workman out into the backyard. ‘Is there any news from Chagford or Dunsford?’ he asked anxiously.

The coroner shook his dark head. ‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me something. I wondered if your brother’s testament had shed light on who would gain most from his death.’

Peter, dressed in a neat brown tunic with a long leather apron tied around his waist, answered for his master. ‘We went to see Robert Courteman, the lawyer, but he would tell us nothing. We must wait until all the family are present.’

‘And when might that be?’

‘We hear it should be on Sunday, for the widow is now said to be coming to Exeter for that very purpose. No doubt she will bring her damned brother and her mother,’ he added, with ill-concealed bitterness.

De Wolfe noticed that he called his stepmother ‘the widow’, rather than use her name. This was a family ridden with antagonism, he thought, all vying with each other for the best share of the spoils. To give Matthew credit, he seemed outwardly more concerned with the hunt for Walter’s killer than with the will, but de Wolfe had no news for him on that score. ‘I have left my officer in Chagford to pick up any news that may be dropped during the coinage. He’s due back tonight, so I will let you know if anything more has happened.’

Back in his cramped, draughty chamber at the top of the gatehouse at Rougemont, de Wolfe laboriously wrote a few words on a scrap piece of parchment, putting down the names of the two hanged men and the victim of the ox-cart accident so that he would not forget them by the time Thomas came back and he could dictate a full account. By now it was late morning and rain was still falling from the leaden sky. Going to the niche in the rough stone wall, he took an earthenware mug and filled it from Gwyn’s gallon jar on the floor. Without his two assistants to visit the stalls, there was no bread, meat or cheese, and as he sat alone in the bare cell, drinking sour cider, he realised that he missed their company, much as their bickering often irritated him.

He hoped fervently that Thomas would soon be back on duty; without proper records, the coroner’s business would become chaotic and, indeed, futile, for de Wolfe’s main function was to record all these legal events for the royal courts. He went on to wonder how the new coroner, Theobald Fitz-Ivo, was managing, with no experience and, in de Wolfe’s opinion, a severe shortage of brains and common sense.

His drink finished, de Wolfe sat hunched over his table, fingers drumming idly on the rough boards. There was nothing else he could do without Thomas and the cider had merely reminded him that his stomach was rumbling for want of food. The prospect of sitting opposite Matilda for dinner in his own hall did not appeal and a devil came to sit on his shoulder to whisper ‘The Bush’ in his ear.

Leaving Rougemont, his feet took him almost unbidden down to Idle Lane, but when he came to the edge of the barren plot on which the tavern stood, he hovered uncertainly. For a man of such single-minded determination, used to quick, firm decisions, this wavering was foreign indeed. One part of his mind cursed the affairs of heart and flesh for so undermining his usual strength of will. Standing on the wet road, like a lanky black heron, he stared across at the Bush, willing Nesta to come out alone so that he could talk to her without curious eyes watching them and the bold face of Alan of Lyme grinning in the background. But though a customer or two came and went through the low front door, there was no sign of his former mistress — as was to be expected, he told himself angrily. She always had business inside, in the kitchens or the ale-room or on the upper floor. The thought of the little upstairs room and the thrice-damned Alan occupying the French bed he had bought, made him grind his teeth in jealous rage.

After five minutes of lurking in the street like a lovesick youth, de Wolfe shook himself back to his senses and walked slowly past the inn, hoping that Nesta would appear and fall into his arms as he passed the door. Nothing of the kind happened and, feeling foolish, he walked on to the other end of the lane, then turned and slowly repeated the process. By the time he got back to his original spot, he was in a cold rage, mostly with himself for his foolish, adolescent behaviour. A knight of the realm, a senior law officer and a veteran of countless wars, skulking in a back-street to stalk a lover who had rejected him!

‘To hell with it,’ he muttered aloud, to a startled rat snuffling in the garbage at his feet, ‘I’m going to eat at the Golden Hind.’

A large meat pie and two quarts of ale later, he felt slightly better and in the mood to write off the Welsh redhead as water under the bridge. His thoughts were already straying to Dawlish and the fair Hilda — he even wondered if he might engineer a visit soon to Salcombe, where another pleasant widow had not had his attentions for six months and more.

By mid-afternoon, after another jug of ale, John decided to walk back to the castle to practise his lessons, much neglected of late. He had been attending a vicar-choral in the cathedral precinct for tuition in reading and writing, and Thomas de Peyne had also been coaching him. Starting education so late in life, John found it hard to retain such learning and his progress had been slow, but he resolved once more to make a greater effort to become literate.

Outside the tavern, the drizzle had ceased and he made his way up the high street, ploughing through the crowds like a ship parting the waves. As a flock of sheep on their way to slaughter flowed around his legs, he caught sight of a familiar figure coming behind them. Surprised, he stopped and let Thomas come up to him, clinging for support to a solicitous young secondary. ‘Thomas, what are you doing out and about? When I saw you this morning, you were flat on your back in St John’s.’

Haggard, but grimly determined, the little clerk clung tightly to his companion’s elbow. ‘I am bruised but unbowed, Crowner. Brother Saulf said I could go home if I spent the rest of the day on my pallet there. I can get back to my duties tomorrow, I’m sure.’

De Wolfe grinned, for the small man had raised his own spirits too with his dogged determination. ‘You’re like Lazarus rising from the tomb — or sick-bed, in your case. But take your time in returning, Thomas — though I’ll admit I’ve already sorely missed your skills.’

Thomas’s peaky face lit up with pleasure at even this mild praise from his master, to whom he was devoted. ‘The hand that holds the quill is undamaged, Crowner. As my uncle the Archdeacon has shown me, I have experienced a small miracle — a sign from God that my cause is not hopeless.’ He winced as his free arm made the Sign of the Cross.

As he limped away towards the cathedral Close, leaning heavily on his friend, de Wolfe set off back to Rougemont with a spring in his step, cheered by the marked improvement in his clerk’s mood. In the chamber above the portcullis, he settled down for an hour or two’s study of the parchment leaves that bore his Latin lessons. Slowly and silently, his lips formed the sounds of the grammar and vocabulary that the vicar and Thomas had written for him. Then he laboriously practised writing simple phrases, using one of his clerk’s spare pens and jet black ink.

Eventually the effects of half a gallon of ale and the boredom of learning overcame him and he sprawled across his table, leaning his black head on his arms, and was soon sound asleep.

He was awakened by a timid rapping on the boards in front of his nose and blearily opened his eyes to see a young man-at-arms from the guard-room below, standing before him. Another older man was waiting just inside the sacking that screened the doorway.

‘This man says he must see you urgently, Crowner,’ stuttered the soldier, and stepped back to let the bailiff come forward, for John had recognised him as Justin Green from Chagford. Suddenly fully awake, with a premonition of trouble, de Wolfe motioned the man to the empty stool opposite. ‘What is it? Where’s my man Gwyn?’ he demanded.

The bailiff, his upper half damp with rain and his legs muddied from hard riding, looked anxiously at the coroner, in the manner of all harbingers of bad tidings. Haltingly, he told his tale, watching de Wolfe as his consternation grew.

The substance of his news was that there had been a near riot at the coinage in Chagford that morning when the Saxon Aethelfrith had been captured red-handed damaging some tin-works on the edge of the moor. A mob of tinners had dragged him to the town square, also accusing him of killing Henry of Tunnaford and Walter Knapman. He had boasted proudly of his vandalism and the enraged crowd had beaten him up. Gwyn had tried to intervene and had been knocked senseless for his trouble.

‘Is he badly hurt?’ interrupted de Wolfe, lurching to his feet.

The bailiff shook his head. ‘He was knocked out, but soon recovered, though with many scrapes and bruises. But the man he struck was still senseless when I left and I fear he may die. The tinners have bound your man and have taken him prisoner.’

Justin Green explained that Gwyn had been slightly wounded by a dagger and then went on to say that the crowd had hanged the old Saxon forthwith, stringing him up from a rafter of the coinage shelter, amid yells and jeers from the inflamed tinners.

‘And where was the sheriff when this outrage was taking place?’ roared the coroner.

‘The tinners demanded that he should convict and condemn Aethelfrith, as their Warden of the Stannaries — but he would not. Neither did he try to stop the execution, having but half a dozen soldiers with him against that ugly mob.’

‘The rest of the men returned with the constable a few hours ago,’ volunteered the young man-at-arms from behind.

De Wolfe kicked over his bench in rage and stormed into the middle of the chamber. ‘Damn the sheriff, the God-forsaken coward! He should have tried to stop them. The Stannaries have no jurisdiction over violent crime.’

‘That’s what your Cornishman yelled at them — and got stabbed for his pains.’

‘Where is he now, the rash fool?’

‘On his way to Lydford, lashed to the rail of a horse cart, with the man he felled lying at his feet. The sheriff and his men, with Sir Geoffrey Fitz-Peters and a score of tinners from around Lydford, are riding with them.’

‘Why in the name of the Holy Virgin are they all going to Lydford?’ demanded de Wolfe, becoming progressively more agitated as the story unfolded.

‘The tinners insisted on taking him to the new prison at Lydford and the sheriff made no protest. They say that if the other man dies they will hang Gwyn for murder.’

John groaned — it was already early evening and Lydford was well over thirty miles from Exeter, around the northern bulge of Dartmoor.

He could set out this evening, but would not get far before darkness fell. ‘How came you to ride here with the news?’ He thought that surely the sheriff would not have wanted to advertise his sorry part in this affair.

‘Sergeant Gabriel managed to speak to me secretly in the confusion when they were hanging the Saxon. He wanted me to urge on you the gravity of the matter, especially where your officer is concerned.’

‘I need no convincing of that — but many thanks for your speedy summons. When are these hot-heads likely to get to Lydford with their cart?’

‘They left soon after noon and it’s about eighteen miles from Chagford. That wagon is less cumbersome than an ox-cart, but they’ll still take at least until dark to get there.’

De Wolfe stared blankly through one of the window slits as he worked out the best plan of action. ‘I’ll ride tonight and get as far as I can, then continue at dawn,’ he growled. ‘You get a bed in a tavern here, then go home, with my thanks.’ He was already collecting his cape and broadsword from pegs on the wall. ‘I’ll get a palfrey or post-horse from the garrison stables. It will be swifter than my heavier destrier.’

De Wolfe strode to the doorway, slipping the baldric over his shoulder and buckling up his sword-belt. ‘And God help them if they’ve harmed my officer.’