The Tinner's corpse

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

In spite of de Wolfe’s urgent need to reach Lydford quickly, fate conspired against him. The palfrey he had hired cast a shoe near Tedburn St Mary, a hamlet no more than a quarter of the way to Lydford. By the time he managed to rouse a farrier in the village it was pitch dark and he could go no further. He spent the night wrapped in his cloak on the floor of the forge next to the banked-down furnace, and continued on his way at the first glimpse of dawn. Riding was slower than he had anticipated, for the track was muddy with rain and the remnants of melted snow, some of which still lay along the verges.

The road ran in a wide semicircle north of Dartmoor, which loomed high on his left hand. It was almost noon when he rode at last into Lydford, which lay half-way between Okehampton and Tavistock at the western margin of Devon. An ancient Saxon burgh, the little town had two castles: one was a ruined timber structure, dating back to the Conquest, which sat on the edge of the deep gorge that protected one side of Lydford; the other was a brand new square stone tower at the opposite end of the old castle bailey. It had been finished only a month earlier, to serve mainly as the Stannary gaol, though the lord of Lydford had quarters on the top floor. The main hall below this was used as a court and guardroom, the gaol being underneath. It was lacking door or window, reached only through a trap-door from the hall. Already, in the short time the prison had been in use, it had gained an evil reputation for its awful conditions.

John de Wolfe rode wearily up to the rebuilt wooden gatehouse that sat in a stockade that ran along the bank and ditch of the earlier fortifications. A crowd of men was clustered outside, with a fringe of curious women and children. As John walked the palfrey through the archway, a guard stepped forward to challenge him, but a snapped, ‘King’s coroner!’ left him standing with his mouth open.

There were more rough-looking men milling around the courtyard who, de Wolfe guessed rightly, were tinners. A thatched stable block was against the inside of the stockade on his left, with many horses and ponies tethered to rails. He left the palfrey with a dim-witted stable-boy, then strode towards the wooden steps that led up to the main floor of the tower.

At the top, there was such a press of people trying to get into the hall that he had to pull shoulders aside to get through. Inside the doorway a solid plug of bodies brought him to a halt. ‘What’s going on in here?’ he growled in the ear of a grey-bearded fellow jammed against his left side.

‘A crowner’s inquest — a local tinner who died here last night, after that affair in Chagford.’

For a moment, de Wolfe was mystified, as well as anxious. Then he realised that the territory given to Theobald Fitz-Ivo included Lydford. Even though the tinner had been injured in Chagford, which was de Wolfe’s responsibility, he had died in Lydford, so Fitz-Ivo rightly had jurisdiction. He forced his way inside, ignoring protests and threats until he had a clear view of the large chamber.

A low dais to one side carried a few benches and chairs, as in the Shire Court at Exeter. On these sat the obese Fitz-Ivo and the dapper sheriff, together with a couple of clerks and Geoffrey Fitz-Peters. Behind them stood a couple of men-at-arms, a priest and a few tinners. Immediately below the dais, a low bier rested on the floor, carrying the body of the black-bearded tinner, covered with a sheet up to his neck.

But de Wolfe’s attention was riveted elsewhere. Directly in front of the platform the huge figure of Gwyn of Polruan was pinioned by two soldiers. His officer looked even more dishevelled than usual, his hair tangled and ominously matted with dried blood. The part of his face that was not covered in whiskers was red and bruised and his left eye was half closed, the lid swollen and dark. As if they feared the giant would break free from his captors, heavy metal fetters were clamped around his wrists and ankles, joined together with a rusty chain.

Appalled and angry, de Wolfe shoved further forward until he stood in a free space at one end of the dais, the rest of the small hall being packed with a few score tinners, presumably both jury and spectators. Fitz-Ivo was leaning forward to speak, hunched over his paunch. The inquest must have been well advanced, for he was haranguing the jury by way of a summing-up.

‘So here we have a law-abiding man, a tinner helping to guard the self-confessed murderer of another tinner, Henry of Tunnaford, as well as being the destroyer of God knows how many stream-works and blowing-houses.’ He leered around the audience, deliberately emphasising the tinning aspects to a jury who were virtually all tinners.

‘This poor man was then grossly assaulted by this Cornishman, who beat him senseless and left him to die. The motive need not concern us, for a coroner’s inquest is to determine what happened and who was responsible, not why it occurred. Suffice it to say that this Gwyn of Polruan was not acting under his master’s orders, for the Exeter coroner was far away by then.’

De Wolfe fumed at this distortion of the truth, but worse was yet to come.

‘Consider your verdict, then, you men of the jury. This honest tinner, who leaves a widow and five children, was done to death by a brute twice his size, who tried to disrupt and prevent a summary trial and execution of a killer, confessed out of his own mouth — crimes solely against Stannary interests and swift justice straight from Stannary men.’ Fitz-Ivo leaned back and gave a self-satisfied smile at Richard de Revelle, as if to canvass his approval.

The sheriff was looking uncomfortable at the way Fitz-Ivo was drumming up feelings in the heart of tinners’ country, but made no effort to intervene, his popularity in this area being so fragile.

With sweat on his podgy face from excitement at his own eloquence, the fledgling coroner turned back to his audience to reach the climax of his exhortation. ‘The verdict is yours, but consider it among yourselves now. This can only be murder, a violent death from grievous bodily harm, and a hundred witnesses can show it was Gwyn of Polruan.’ He took a deep breath then delivered his coup de grâce. ‘If that is your verdict, then the culprit must hang forthwith!’ he shouted.

There was a scatter of yells of approval from the hall, though quite a number of tinners looked uneasy at this premature turn of events.

De Wolfe’s patience snapped, worn to breaking point by rising incredulity and anger. He thrust his way across the floor below the dais to stand in front of Gwyn and glare at the new coroner. The platform was only knee-high and as Fitz-Ivo was sitting down, de Wolfe’s face was on a level with his.

‘Have you gone mad, you fool? Or are you just drunk?’ he yelled, in a voice so strident that a hush fell upon the hall, even among the more raucous elements who had just been applauding his officer’s death sentence.

Fitz-Ivo flinched, his protuberant watery eyes gazing at de Wolfe as if he was the devil just arrived from hell. He opened his mouth to protest, but John overrode his words. ‘Have you learned nothing about your duties and powers, man?’ he ranted. ‘A coroner cannot pass any sentence, let alone that of death. If your jury names a person as being responsible, then he must be committed to the King’s justices for trial.’

Fitz-Ivo lurched to his feet, trying to work up righteous indignation. ‘You have no right to disrupt my court, de Wolfe. A coroner you may be, but now you have no jurisdiction here.’ He looked around for support from the sheriff, but de Revelle sat stonily silent. He was well aware that his protégé was incompetent to the point of absurdity, but locked in a room with a few score ill-disposed tinners he was desperate to remain neutral for as long as possible.

De Wolfe glared directly into Fitz-Ivo’s protuberant eyes as he said, ‘Your appointment has not yet been confirmed by the King’s Justiciar or his judges — and after this fiasco, I intend to make sure it never will be!’ His voice rose in a crescendo of wrath.

Turning his back abruptly on the fat knight, he walked the few steps past the corpse to where Gwyn stood, and laid a hand solicitously on his arm. ‘How goes it with you, man? Are you sorely hurt?’

His officer managed a crooked grin. ‘I’m well enough, Crowner. It takes more than a few loose-fisted tinners to see me off — even when one of them uses a knife.’ He lifted a chained arm enough to show his master where the blade had sliced though his leather cuirass.

De Wolfe confronted one of the hulking men holding his officer, prodding him hard in the chest with a bony finger. ‘Get these irons struck from this man immediately!’

The tinner looked warily across at his companion, who gripped Gwyn’s other arm, then shook his head. ‘The crowner up there told me to fetter him,’ he growled uncertainly.

‘And the crowner here is telling you to unfetter him!’ snarled de Wolfe. ‘That fellow up there is no longer a coroner.’

Fitz-Ivo let out a howl of protest, and a few yells of dissent and abuse from the hall encouraged Richard de Revelle to rise and half-heartedly contradict his brother-in-law. ‘You have no cause to interfere in this, John!’

De Wolfe swung around to face him. ‘Indeed I have!’ he roared, in a voice that quelled the rising murmur in the court. ‘I am the only coroner in Devon appointed by King Richard and his justices. I had grave reservations, expressed to you, Sheriff, about even provisionally appointing this man to office, and I’ll prove to you that my misgivings were indeed well founded.’ His voice crackled with authority, and although Fitz-Ivo opened and closed his mouth a few times, he could find no words to utter.

‘First, my officer here was in Chagford expressly at my orders, to safeguard the coroner’s interest in the investigation of two murders. Thus he was acting on my behalf in all he did.

‘Second, the action of that unruly mob in hanging the Saxon was unlawful. They were well within their rights in seizing him if he was caught causing damage, but they had a duty to deliver him into custody until a proper trial could be held.’ He scowled at de Revelle and added, ‘I am surprised and concerned, Sheriff, that you, being present with men-at-arms, did not insist on — and enforce — this proper course.’ He turned to his now silent audience. ‘To hang that man without trial was a crime against the King’s peace equivalent to murder. I shall hold an inquest in Chagford on this Aethelfrith and will report those responsible to the King’s judges when the Eyre of Assize comes to Exeter in the near future.’

This provoked an angry response from certain parts of the gloomy chamber. ‘We live by Stannary law here, not yours, Crowner,’ yelled a voice from the back.

‘No, you do not!’ retorted de Wolfe, with a voice like a bull. ‘The King gave you tinners those special dispensations because of the value of the metal to the Crown. But you know well enough — and your Lord Warden here can confirm it — that Stannary law strictly excludes any jurisdiction over crimes of violence, those against life, limb or property.’

De Wolfe now fixed his eyes on Fitz-Ivo, who was as deflated as a pricked bladder. ‘Finally, you claimed in your fine speech just now that my officer cruelly beat this man to death!’ He pointed a quivering finger at the corpse lying on its bier. ‘Yet you did not invite your jury to inspect the body, as you should have done, and if they had, they would have noticed a strange lack of evidence about this cruel and fatal beating.’

De Wolfe bent down and grasped the shoulder of the stiff cadaver, turning it on its side to face Theobald Fitz-Ivo. ‘The face is unmarked, is it not?’ He pulled down the grubby sheet and pointed to the neck and chest, then hoisted the body half off the bier to display its back. ‘So where are the signs of this merciless beating, eh? A single bruise behind the ear!’ He let the body fall back and dragged the sheet over it.

‘The truth of the matter is that the deceased man struck my officer a sudden cowardly thrust with a dagger, as the bailiff of Chagford can testify, as well as Gwyn of Polruan himself — and, no doubt, a dozen witnesses, if they were honest enough to come forward.’ He turned to the Cornishman. ‘Show them your wound, Gwyn.’ Awkwardly, the officer lifted his chained arms to show the fresh slash in his thick jerkin. ‘Under that, Crowner.’

De Wolfe pulled aside his outer garment and displayed a large circle of dried blood on Gwyn’s duncoloured tunic, just over the edge of his ribs on the left side. ‘We are lucky not to be holding another inquest — this time on a murdered law officer!’ he shouted, with real anger in his voice. ‘He struck the coward a single blow in self-defence, which must have caused an apoplexy in the brain. He fell unconscious and died some hours later.’

He bent again towards the sweating Fitz-Ivo and snarled, ‘A royal law officer trying to uphold the King’s peace against an unlawful lynch mob is attacked with a knife and has to defend himself with a single blow from his fist. Where now are your grounds for murder, Fitz-Ivo?’

He drew back and turned his thunderous features upon the sheriff. ‘I shall report all of these matters to the Justiciar, Sheriff. Not only about Fitz-Ivo’s irresponsible incompetence, but also your own failure to uphold the rule of law and the King’s peace by not even attempting to prevent the unlawful killing of the old Saxon — and your lamentable inaction in not curbing the present folly of this so-called coroner!’

As de Revelle began to huff and puff in his own defence, de Wolfe’s stentorian voice overrode him. ‘As the only official coroner in this county, I declare this travesty of an inquest null and void. I will take it over myself to reach a proper and legal verdict.’

He hoisted himself up on to the platform and stood menacingly over the crestfallen Fitz-Ivo, then signalled peremptorily to the pair still holding Gwyn. ‘I told you to take my officer out to the smithy and get those bonds struck off — at once.’

As the Cornishman, grinning with relief, shuffled towards the door, de Wolfe beckoned to the front row of the sullen but subdued audience. ‘Those of you who were named as the jury, come forward and look closely at the corpse.’

A couple of hours later, the coroner and his officer were riding almost knee to knee along the road back towards Exeter.

‘That was a near thing, Crowner. If you hadn’t arrived when you did, they’d have strung me up for sure, just like that old Saxon.’

No formal word of thanks had passed between Gwyn and his master, but the bond that twenty years of companionship had forged was sufficient to leave many things unspoken.

John gave one of his gargling grunts, which obscured a whole range of emotions from displeasure to contentment. ‘That swine was the cause of most of the trouble,’ he muttered, jerking a gloved hand at the sheriff who rode twenty yards ahead, behind Sergeant Gabriel and two of his men, the others forming a rearguard.

‘Fitz-Ivo was no help, either!’ growled Gwyn cynically.

John spat accurately into the ditch as they trotted along. Their discussion lapsed for a while as they reached a rutted part of the track, where wagons had cut deep grooves in the mud, formed where a stream had overflowed recently. The horses picked their way delicately through the morass until a rise in the ground hardened off the surface once more.

De Wolfe picked up the talk where it had ended, speaking in a Welsh-Cornish patois, as he and Gwyn always did when alone together. ‘Fitz-Ivo’s just an ignorant fool — but de Revelle is a malignant, scheming bastard! He’s also a spineless bastard, when it comes to a challenge, God be praised. If he’d not been so weak back there, my task would have been the harder.’

Gwyn was thankful that both the sheriff and Fitz-Ivo had caved in so readily under the coroner’s verbal onslaught in Lydford Castle. The neutral attitude of Geoffrey Fitz-Peters had helped, too, as although the manor lord wished to stay on the side of the powerful community of tinners, he had been uneasy about the flagrant breaches of law, both concerning Aethelfrith’s lynching and the illegal inquest that aimed to sentence Gwyn to death. Geoffrey also hoped to succeed Richard de Revelle as Lord Warden, and de Wolfe’s threat to report the sheriff’s failings to the Chief Justiciar and demand a Commission of Enquiry into the running of the Stannaries had been music to ears that wanted de Revelle dispossessed of the Wardenship.

‘Will you really speak of him to the Justiciar?’ enquired Gwyn, tenderly touching his swollen eye and bruised face.

‘I’m certainly going to tell Hubert to watch who becomes coroner when vacancies arise in the counties. And a close look is needed at the Stannary organisation.¹ These tinners are getting above themselves! They seem to think that they live above the King’s laws, and they’ve grown more arrogant since the King needed all the metal they can produce. If we had a decent Warden, instead of a scheming rogue who only wants to line his own purse, they’d be much better served.’

The group of horsemen made steady progress, hour after hour, stopping a few times to rest and water their horses at inns in Okehampton and Whiddon Down. Here they drank some ale and ate sparingly at a tavern, the soldiers eating from the hard rations they carried in their saddle-pouches. The sheriff pointedly ignored de Wolfe, and as he was above socialising with Gabriel he ate and drank in aloof solitude.

On the last leg of the journey in the late afternoon of that Saturday, the conversation between the coroner and his henchman turned back to the unresolved affair at Chagford.

‘Before they strung him up, it seems that Aethelfrith confessed readily to the slaying of Henry, the overman,’ observed Gwyn. ‘He seemed quite proud of it, saying how he had done it with an old Danish battleaxe that had belonged to an ancestor, who was in Harold’s army and survived the battle at Hastings.’

‘Why should he have suddenly turned to murder?’ asked de Wolfe, intrigued by the story.

‘He said that Henry of Tunnaford was the spokesman of the jury that condemned his only son to be hanged twenty years before. It seems he was accused of stealing a sheep on the moor — falsely, according to Aethelfrith, as they really wanted to stop him trying to stake a claim on a small tin-stream way out on the moor.’

De Wolfe rode on in silence for a while. ‘So it seems that the tinner’s death is unconnected with that of Walter Knapman. The Saxon didn’t admit to that, did he?’

‘He was scornful of the notion when the tinners accused him of it.’

‘It’s what I felt in my bones all along — Dunsford was well out of Aethelfrith’s territory, anyway. So we still have that problem on our hands. It has to have been someone who would profit by Knapman’s death. It was no stray outlaw killing, I’m sure.’

Gwyn winced as the mare stumbled, jarringhis bruised ribs. ‘There’s a damned wide field of suspects to choose from, Crowner. That brother of the widow seems the most likely to me, a villain if I ever saw one. All he wants is to get a piece of Knapman’s empire through his sister.’

De Wolfe grunted, keeping his eye on the sheriff’s back to make sure he was far enough ahead not to hear their conversation. ‘That applies to others in the family, too. Matthew and the stepson have been worrying themselves stupid over the will, ever since Walter died.’

‘What about Stephen Acland? He’s after the widow — and not only for her beautiful body, I reckon.’

John had still failed to size up Acland. ‘But would he kill for it, I wonder? Where was he when you had your bit of trouble in Chagford yesterday?’

‘Not a sign of him — not even at the coinage, where a goodly part of the metal belonged to him.’ Gwyn’s blue eyes twinkled — or, at least, the one that was still visible did. ‘I suspect he was away holding the fair Joan’s hand — or some other part of her, perhaps.’

‘At least you can’t accuse him of wanting you hanged,’ said de Wolfe, with a wry smile at his henchman. ‘But he still has to stay as a possible candidate for Walter’s killing. He’s got a double motive.’

‘I suppose we can exclude the fat priest, Smithson — he’s hardly likely to slay Walter, as part of his living came from Knapman’s purse, so he wouldn’t want to risk that drying up.’

There was a comfortable silence between them as another few miles of track passed beneath their horses’ legs. The weather had improved, and as they neared Exeter and the coast, the snow vanished from the countryside, and fitful patches of blue sky appeared between the clouds as the east wind dropped.

De Wolfe had earlier told Gwyn of their clerk’s dramatic but futile attempt to end his life, and the big man had been noticeably upset, vowing never to tease the little fellow again — a promise that de Wolfe doubted he would be able to keep. ‘He seems much more contented, now that John de Alençon has convinced him that his deliverance was miraculous,’ said John, when the subject came up again.

Soon the tops of the great twin towers of the cathedral came into view, as Exeter’s northern crag appeared on the horizon. De Wolfe rehearsed his excuses to Matilda for his intention to report her brother’s further misconduct, as well as his unseating of Theobald Fitz-Ivo from the coronership, after she and Richard had connived at his appointment. ‘She’ll have the same old stick back to beat me with,’ he grumbled to Gwyn. ‘The one that says that being the only coroner means I’m always away from home, neglecting her.’

He realised again, sadly, that he no longer had the Bush Inn as a bolt-hole.