The Tinner's corpse

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The distant cathedral bell had tolled some time ago for the mid-morning offices of Nones, Sext and Terce. De Wolfe and his clerk had just come from the Shire Hall in the inner ward of Rougemont, where a short session of the County Court had sentenced two thieves to mutilation, their right hands to be cut off in the undercroft by Stigand, the gaoler, and another two to be hanged. The sheriff was as uncommunicative with de Wolfe as he had been since the Lydford episode, and had stalked back to his chambers in the keep as soon as the cursing prisoners and their wailing families had been dragged from the court-house by his men-at-arms.

As usual, John was fretting about the chaotic system of law enforcement that had developed and the inability of the government to keep its promises for reform. ‘It’s damned nonsense to have manor courts, burgess courts, county courts and the King’s courts, all competing for the same business,’ he complained to Thomas, who had heard it all before.

‘There’s good money to be made by all of them,’ the clerk answered mildly.

‘And it’s my job as coroner to drive as much of it as possible into the royal courts,’ retorted his master. ‘That’s why Hubert Walter set them up, to trim the wings of sheriffs and barons. But how can he expect me to prevail against them, when his judges don’t come round the counties when they should?’

Thomas hurried to keep up with his master’s loping stride, his left foot dragging slightly from the old phthisis in his hip. ‘I heard from a visiting canon last week that the Eyre was in Wiltshire and should be here at any time now,’ he said breathlessly.

De Wolfe snorted as he headed back towards his chamber in the gatehouse. ‘How often have we heard that, Thomas? The Assize should come several times a year, but we’ve seen no sign of it since last summer, in spite of the Justiciar’s promise when he visited a few months back.’

His grumbling was cut short as they approached the arch of the gatehouse, under which the stairs to his office climbed steeply up from the guardroom. The sentry on duty at the top of the short drawbridge over the dry ditch was holding up his lance and waving his arm to stop a horseman who was cantering up the hill towards them, his steed frothing at the mouth. He clattered to a halt under the raised portcullis and slid from his saddle, almost into the arms of the sentry. Sergeant Gabriel emerged from the guardroom and joined the coroner and his clerk, who were waiting to see what this urgency was all about.

‘I must see the sheriff — or someone in authority!’ panted the messenger, looking almost as exhausted as his mare, even though it later transpired that they had ridden little more than a mile.

Gabriel, his grizzled features frowning under his iron helmet, strode forward and grabbed the man by his shoulder. ‘What’s all the panic, man? Who are you?’

The young fellow, whose rustic dress and odour suggested that he was a stablehand, was making the most of his moment of importance. ‘I’m a groom from Polsloe, sir. Sent to report a grievous happening, not more than an hour since,’ he wheezed.

The sergeant grabbed the reins of the mare and pushed them at the sentry, then half dragged the priory servant across to a rough bench set against the guardroom wall. ‘Sit there, get your breath and tell us what’s wrong,’ he commanded.

At the mention of Dame Madge’s abode, the coroner and his clerk hurriedly joined Gabriel in standing over the youth to hear what he had to say.

‘Two ladies and a lawyer fellow came to visit our sisters this morning — I don’t know their names or business. They left after a short while to return to the city, but not more than fifteen minutes or so later, the elder lady comes flying back on her pony, all dishevelled and screaming blue murder.’

The groom was determined to squeeze the last drop of drama out of his account, but de Wolfe was impatient. ‘Get on with it, lad!’

‘Several sisters came running out at the noise, then Dame Madge spoke to the lady and sent a couple of us from the stableyard helter-skelter back along the Exeter road, the women following on foot.’

He stopped for breath, then went on with his saga. ‘The forest, what’s left of it there, starts not two hundred paces along the track from the priory. Around the bend, within the wood, we came across two loose palfreys and a younger lady lying groaning at the side of the road. A few paces away, the lawyer fellow I saw earlier was stretched out across a bush, out of his senses and with blood coming from his head.’

He stopped and Gabriel shook his arm impatiently. ‘Then what?’ he shouted.

The stablelad shrugged, having almost run out of information. ‘We went to succour the pair, but a moment later, Dame Madge came running up — she’s a mortal strong woman,’ he added ruefully. ‘She told me straight away to ride fast to the castle here and tell either the sheriff or the crowner that there had been attempted murder and to send a posse right away. It seems the elder lady had told her that some footpad had burst out of the trees and attacked them. That’s all I know,’ he finished, rather lamely.

De Wolfe looked at the sergeant. ‘Get a couple of mounted men, Gabriel. This is no common highway robbery, so near the city. And I know the people involved. Something odd is going on.’ He swung round to Thomas. ‘Get up the stairs and rouse Gwyn from his second breakfast. Tell him to come over to the stables with us to get horses.’

Half an hour later, the posse from Rougemont had reached the scene of the outrage. At a bend in the track, almost within sight of the priory, the trees crowded close to the verge. A small area of flattened grass and scrub was being guarded by two servants from Polsloe. They pointed out blood splashes on the vegetation and where a line of beaten grass and weeds led off into the trees. De Wolfe suggested to Gabriel that he take his men to follow this trail, while he himself carried on to the priory. With Gwyn and the young stable-boy — for the feeble Thomas had stayed in Exeter — John rode the last quarter-mile at a full gallop.

In the three-roomed infirmary of the priory, he found Dame Madge and another Sister of Mercy attending to Philip Courteman, who was slumped on a bench against the whitewashed wall, having a long, but shallow cut on his scalp bathed and bandaged.

‘He has suffered no great harm, thanks be to God,’ announced the brawny Dame Madge, the sleeves of her black gown rolled up and a bloodstained apron wrapped around her waist.

Philip groaned at her ministrations, but he was fully alert, though very sorry for himself.

‘What of the lady?’ asked the coroner anxiously.

‘She, too, is quite well — she has bruises on her throat, but is recovering on a bed next door with her mother beside her,’ said the nun. ‘No harm has befallen the child she carries, as far as I can tell. The good Lord has certainly looked after his own today, though the older lady Lucy gave him stout assistance,’ she added, with one of her rare smiles.

While the other sister wound a long strip of linen around his head, Philip haltingly told de Wolfe his part of the story.

‘We were hardly out of sight of this place, trotting around a bend, when what I took to be a monk in a habit and cowl, carrying a staff, waved us down at the side of the track. I was in front of the ladies and I stopped. I assumed he was in some distress.’ He looked rather sheepish as he added, ‘The distress was to be mine, for that’s the last I recall, until I found myself being carried back here across the back of a groom’s nag. He must have struck me senseless with that staff.’

Frustrated by Philip’s loss of memory, de Wolfe turned away, to be faced by Joan’s mother, who had come from the next room at the sound of voices. Her wrinkled face was relieved by her bright blue eyes and even the hardened Dame Madge seemed impressed by her. ‘The lad was knocked out of his senses,’ she declared, ‘but I can tell you what took place. This fellow, disguised as a Benedictine in his black robe, struck the young fellow here a swinging blow with his staff that felled him from his horse. Then he rushed at my poor daughter, her being with child, and dragged her from her pony.’ Lucy clenched her fists at the memory. ‘Thankfully, she fell into a bush which broke her fall, but then the bastard — begging your pardon, Sister — bent over her and started to throttle her. And I couldn’t be putting up with that, could I?’ she added, in an almost matter-of-fact tone.

Dame Madge put an arm affectionately around Lucy’s shoulders. ‘A real heroine, this woman,’ she said proudly. ‘She attacked the villain herself and drove him off.’

The mother, though still tremulous, beamed. ‘I’m a tanner’s wife, and I’ve seen plenty of rough men and fights in my time. I drove my horse at him and reared her up so that her front hoofs struck him. I was afraid for my daughter, but she was underneath and it was that or let her be strangled.’

John had to admire Lucy’s enterprise and courage — though the thought passed through his mind that she would probably be worse to live with than Matilda and that perhaps the tanner from Ashburton was happier in his grave. ‘So he made a run for it, this man?’ he asked.

‘I think I hurt him grievously,’ said Lucy. ‘I felt a hoof crunch into the side of his chest, for he let out a terrible scream. He dropped Joan and staggered away, then limped off into the forest. I was too concerned with my daughter to bother with him, as long as he fled.’

‘Have you any notion as to who he was?’ asked Gwyn, silent until now.

‘No, he kept this monk’s habit girded tightly around himself and I think he must have tied the cowl under his chin somehow, for his face stayed well hidden.’

‘Was he a big man or small?’ demanded de Wolfe.

‘Not small, certainly,’ said the old woman, ‘but not a great lump like this ginger man of yours here.’

‘Was your daughter able to recognise him?’

‘She has said nothing, her throat is so sore she can hardly speak.’

Dame Madge interrupted, ‘She is not yet well enough to be questioned, if that is in your mind, Crowner.’

De Wolfe motioned to his officer. ‘We must get back there and see if Gabriel has found anything.’

Minutes later, they returned to the edge of the forest and were met by one of the soldiers who had been left by Gabriel to guard the scene. The man held out something. ‘The sergeant told me to show you this, Crowner. He picked it up where the bushes were flattened.’

John took a shiny grey object into the palm of his hand. It was a charm or amulet hanging on a leather thong, which had snapped. Gwyn looked over his shoulder, curious to see what it was. ‘Made of pure tin, that is,’ he said. ‘Three rabbits with their heads in a circle, sharing only three ears.’

‘The symbol of the tinners,’ agreed de Wolfe. ‘Must have been pulled off the attacker when that harridan Lucy stamped him with her pony.’

‘These bloody tinners get everywhere,’ muttered Gwyn, but a shout from the trees diverted him.

Another soldier appeared, pushing his way through the long damp grass to the edge of the road. ‘We’ve got him, Crowner, though he’ll not last long. The sergeant says for you to come quickly.’

They hurried back into the wood, where the lush undergrowth faded beneath the trees into wild garlic and early bluebells. Footprints in the wet earth and an occasional splash of blood marked the trail for several hundred paces to a small clearing where some fallen trees had allowed the bushes and weeds to flourish again. Here Gabriel, two of his men and the pair of servants from the priory were gathered in a circle. At their feet lay a figure almost hidden under a voluminous habit of coarse black wool. The cowl had been pulled back.

De Wolfe bent over a face that was almost blue. Its owner was gasping for breath, his lips were really black and spittle ran from the corner of his mouth. At first the coroner did not recognise the man, but then he realised he had seen him somewhere before.

‘He seems mortally wounded in the chest,’ murmured Gabriel, pulling aside the robe to show a large tear in the rough blue smock, which suggested a labourer of some kind.

Under the rip, a shiny patch of new blood-clot shimmered in the light coming through the trees and de Wolfe noticed the pink-white end of a broken rib sticking through the underlying skin. ‘What’s your name, fellow?’ he rasped.

Gasping was the only reply and, although the man was conscious, the coroner knew from experience that he had little time left to live. ‘You are dying, fellow, so make your peace with God by confessing your sins,’ said John loudly.

‘His chest is punctured — he has little air left in his lungs,’ diagnosed Gwyn who, like his master, considered himself an expert on injuries after two decades of warfare.

A dying declaration, attested by witnesses, was valid evidence in law, so de Wolfe needed to get what he could before the man expired. He had not forgotten that another death had been caused by a blow from a staff that had unhorsed the victim, and wanted to discover if the same hands had inflicted both strokes. ‘If you can’t speak, nod or shake your head! Did you also attack a man a week ago near Dunsford, a man named Walter Knapman?’

The crumpled figure tried to suck in air, his damaged chest heaving ineffectually. His eyes rolled up, exposing the whites, and de Wolfe thought he had died. But then the bloodshot lids flickered and the eyes refocused, but the man made no sign with his head. ‘You are dying. This is your last chance for redemption,’ he snapped, wishing he had Thomas here to coax the man with some religious cant. ‘Once again, did you attack a man near Dunsford Mill in a similar fashion?’

Foam appeared alongside the spittle on his lips but, slowly, the dying man nodded.

‘And who did you wish to slay today? The young man you struck?’

This time the head moved almost imperceptibly from side to side.

‘So it was the young woman?’

There was a pause and again John feared that death had forestalled him. But then there was a slow nod, before the eyes rolled up again.

‘He’s going, I reckon,’ observed Gwyn impassively.

‘Who set you to these crimes, fellow?’ shouted de Wolfe, desperately, though all too conscious that the man had no ability left to tell him. With a bubbling rattle, pink-stained froth welled from the false monk’s mouth and his head fell back, the face now almost black for want of air.

‘Dead as mutton. You’ll get no more answers from him,’ rumbled Gwyn, satisfied that his forecast of impending death had been correct.

De Wolfe straightened up and looked down at the now inert assailant. ‘At least we know who killed Knapman — though I’ll wager he was only some hired assassin. But where the hell have I seen him before?’

One of the men-at-arms from Rougemont stepped forward and peered again at the corpse. ‘I think I know him, Crowner. With his face blue and swollen like that it’s difficult, but I’m sure he was a porter who worked in Matthew Knapman’s tin-yard near the quayside. He’s part Saxon, by the name of Oswin.’

De Wolfe’s memory clicked, as he recalled the fellow humping tin bars in the warehouse when he called to tell Matthew of his brother’s death.

‘Come, Gwyn, back to the horses. We’ve urgent business to attend in Priest Street.’

However, once on the back of his borrowed mare, de Wolfe decided to call back at the priory to see if Widow Knapman had recovered sufficiently to say whether her assailant had given any clue as to who had sent him on his murderous mission. They found Philip Courteman still sitting on his bench, holding his aching head in his hands, and Lucy in the guest hall with the sisters, who seemed to have been highly taken by her aggressive courage.

The new knowledge he brought, that she had killed their assailant, seemed only to increase her satisfaction, and de Wolfe arranged for the new corpse to be brought to the tiny mortuary outside the infirmary wall until he could hold his inquest.

His hope of talking to Joan was quashed by Dame Madge, who opened the door of the infirmary cell to show her sleeping peacefully beneath an open window. ‘I gave her a sleeping draught to ease the discomfort of her bruised throat,’ explained the nun. ‘She’ll not be ready to talk until later today.’ With that de Wolfe had to be content, and after a few fruitless words with the lawyer’s son, he and his officer rode away towards the city.

Before he went to Matthew’s house and yard, John felt that a brief appearance at home might insure him later against Matilda’s disapproval. He called at Martin’s Lane and partially thawed her icy indifference with the latest news on the Knapman saga. Anything that involved family feuding, pregnancy and disputed wills was welcome nourishment to her curiosity, especially if she could later retail it to her circle of friends at the cathedral and St Olave’s.

His duty done, de Wolfe rejoined Gwyn, who had been skulking in the farrier’s opposite, and they rode down to Priest Street. Here they found that the sheriff had forestalled them: Gabriel had felt obliged to send a soldier post-haste to tell him of the events in Polsloe Wood. Another had been despatched to Matthew’s yard and then to the lawyer’s office, conveying to Robert Courteman the news about his son.

When de Wolfe arrived, two men-at-arms were holding Richard de Revelle’s horse outside the gate to the yard, from where furious shouting could be heard.

‘How, in God’s name, should I know where Oswin has gone?’ yelled Matthew, as they walked through the back gate. ‘He should be here helping to load these bars. I’m having to do it myself, as you can see.’

‘Perhaps he has gone on a murderous errand for you,’ retorted the sheriff. ‘Just as he did last week in Dunsford.’

Matthew looked blankly at de Revelle, whom he thought had gone insane. ‘Mary, Mother of God, what are you saying? Ask the bloody man yourself when he comes back — just before I tell him he’s lost his job here, leaving me in the lurch on such a busy day.’

John stepped forward, and the pair noticed his arrival for the first time. ‘Oswin won’t be coming back today — or any other day. He’s dead, Matthew,’ he said.

‘Where the devil did you spring from, John?’ exclaimed de Revelle, annoyed at the intrusion of the coroner into what he had hoped was to be a surprise arrest of his own.

Guessing that Gabriel had informed the sheriff of recent events, de Wolfe ignored his brother-in-law and spoke to Matthew, who was red-faced with outrage and confusion at de Revelle’s obscure accusations. ‘Your man Oswin attacked Joan Knapman and Philip Courteman today — and admitted killing your brother last week. Have you anything to say about that?’

Matthew’s colour changed from pink to greenish-white and he sank back weakly for support against a pile of ingots. ‘Oswin? Why should he do that? The man’s a moron! He’s only good for using his muscles to lift tin.’

‘Well, he used them to kill Walter and to try to strangle your sister-in-law today. But who put him up to it, eh? We know that two men were implicated in the killing. The lad at the mill was quite definite, simple as he is.’

The sheriff, strutting impatiently in his bright green cloak, thrust himself back into the fray. ‘This Oswin’s your servant, Knapman. He does what you bid him do. Admit it now, you used him to rid you of those who kept you from an inheritance.’

The tin-merchant goggled at de Revelle. ‘Me? Kill Walter? You’re mad! How could I slay my own twin, with whom I shared my mother’s womb?’

De Revelle smiled nastily at Matthew. ‘No doubt we’ll discover that at the Ordeal or during peine forte et dure,’ he threatened. He yelled for his men-at-arms to come into the yard. ‘Seize this man and deliver him to the gaoler in the castle keep.’

Exasperated by yet another act of dangerous foolishness on the part of the sheriff, John stepped forward and grabbed de Revelle’s arm. ‘Don’t be so hasty, Richard. You have no evidence that Matthew is involved in this.’

The sheriff sneered at his brother-in-law. ‘Motive and opportunity — isn’t that sufficient? He stood to gain a goodly part of a fortune by disposing of his brother — and of keeping far more of it by disposing of his widow. As for opportunity, whose servant is the confessed killer, eh?’

‘I have been here in this yard all day, with many witnesses to prove it. How could I have been involved?’ quavered Matthew desperately.

‘I don’t give a tinker’s curse for your alibi today. It was the man you paid to do your evil deeds who matters,’ brayed de Revelle triumphantly.

De Wolfe cast about desperately for something to prevent the sheriff persisting with his rash and impetuous prejudice. ‘Where were you on the morning your brother was murdered?’ he snapped.

Matthew drooped pathetically. ‘What’s the point? You’ll only say it doesn’t matter, as Oswin did my bidding, anyway!’

‘Answer me! Can others testify to your presence somewhere?’

‘Of course! That morning, before I rode to Chagford for my regular meeting with my brother, I was negotiating the sale of tin for Germany, with two merchants from Cologne.’

‘Who, no doubt, have now conveniently left England,’ sneered the sheriff.

‘No! As far as I’m aware their vessel still lies in the river, having sprung leaks that need recaulking,’ averred Matthew, with a return of his defiance.

De Revelle shrugged indifferently. ‘As you said yourself, it matters not. This Oswin did your dirty work for you.’

De Wolfe had his opportunity. ‘Not so, Richard! We well know that another person, apart from the self-confessed Oswin, was involved. Walter was struck from behind. He would never have suffered that had not another person been engaging his attention from the front, the one who led him off the road into the trees. It was almost certainly someone he knew, who would arouse no suspicion of attack. And it could not have been Matthew, who can prove that he was in Exeter until it was too late for him to be in Dunsford at the time Walter was attacked.’

But nothing would dissuade the stubborn de Revelle from his first conclusion and he beckoned again to the two bemused men-at-arms to advance on Matthew. The tin-merchant backed away behind de Wolfe, whom he saw as the more even-handed of the law officers. ‘Wait, I tell you!’ he shouted. ‘What about that damned brother of Joan’s, who can’t wait to get his hands on her money? He declined to go with his sister to Polsloe today, claiming he had urgent business in Ashburton — which I doubt.’ Emboldened by his theory, Matthew’s voice became more confident. ‘If he could get rid of her, after ensuring that Walter’s death and her pregnancy made her the heir, then as her nearest relative he could claim all the eight-tenths for himself. So why not discover where he was today — and on the day my brother met his death?’

This novel idea stopped both the sheriff and the coroner in their tracks. De Wolfe admitted to himself that since Joan had been attacked, the possibility of her brother’s involvement had not occurred to him.

As usual, Gwyn had remained silent while his superiors argued around him, but his ponderous body hid an astute brain. ‘No one has asked where Peter Jordan is today,’ he pointed out.

John stared at the hairy Cornishman, then at Matthew. ‘So where is he?’

The tin-merchant looked mystified. ‘He’s been here all morning, helping me since that damned Oswin failed to appear.’

‘Then where is he now?’ demanded de Revelle, shifting the target of his suspicion.

‘When that messenger came with news of the attack at Polsloe, he said he’d better go home to tell his wife that her brother had been injured. That was a few minutes before you arrived.’

De Revelle gave a shrug of indifference, but John felt a sudden frisson of worry.

‘Where does he live?’

‘In Rack Lane, not two minutes from here.’

Without a word of explanation to the sheriff or Matthew, de Wolfe hurried out with his officer. Minutes later they were rapping on the door that a water-seller had pointed out to them.

A serving-girl ushered them into a small but well-furnished hall and a puzzled-looking Martha Courteman came in from the yard at the back of the house. She was a plain woman, several years older than her husband. A downturned mouth above a receding chin suggested a sour disposition, and John found it easy to accept that she was the daughter of the dour lawyer. ‘We need to speak urgently to your husband, Mistress Jordan,’ he began, hovering over her like a thin black eagle.

Martha looked bewildered. ‘But Peter is at his work down at the warehouse.’

‘Matthew told us that he had hurried home to tell you of the injury to your brother.’

The young wife threw a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream, her eyes as large as eggs. ‘Philip injured? I know nothing of it!’ she howled.

It took a few minutes to explain and calm her down, the maid fussing over her with a reviving glass of mead. De Wolfe was impatient to discover where her husband might have gone, but Martha had no idea. She began to cry, rocking back and forth on a stool.

‘I told him not to meddle in that testament. Nothing but ill could come of it!’ she wailed. De Wolfe seized on this, and prised the story from her. When Walter had remarried, Peter had been concerned naturally that his expectations from the inheritance were in danger, especially if Joan bore a child. His stepfather had refused to give him any hint of his intentions, either before or after the marriage, and Peter eventually persuaded Martha to approach her father, Walter’s lawyer. Robert Courteman refused outright, indignant at her attempt to undermine his professional ethics, so Martha went to work on the weaker party, her brother.

Reluctantly, he eventually agreed to ferret out what he could and secretly searched among his father’s rolls. He reported that the testament he discovered still gave Peter and Matthew virtually half-shares in the estate, but another parchment indicated that Walter had demanded a new will be drafted, giving Joan a similar share. There was no mention of the eight-tenths, should she conceive a child, but she was to share equally with Peter and Matthew.

‘Philip told me only two weeks ago that the revised testament had not been signed,’ whimpered Martha tearfully, ‘but he knew that it soon would be, after Walter had made some further amendments. But now it seems clear that he knew much less about his father’s business than he thought, for another version of the will must already have been signed.’

De Wolfe looked down gravely at her. ‘Is there anything else you should tell me?’

Now that the dam had been breached, she seemed resigned to letting slip other matters. ‘There has been ill-feeling between Matthew and Peter these past weeks, as my husband has long suspected that Matthew has been indulgingin sharp practices with Walter’s business. Peter has been checking secretly on the commissions that Matthew has been taking on the finished tin — especially that sent abroad, to Flanders and the Rhine. It became clear that, for years now, Matthew has been persistently robbing his brother.’

John wondered if this had much to do with the main problem, but felt he should probe further. ‘What was your man going to do about it?’

‘He confronted Matthew a couple of weeks ago, telling him he knew of the embezzlement. Matthew tried to deny it, but Peter said that unless it stopped straight away he would have to tell Walter. For one thing, the loss of income reflected on Peter, who might be accused of being party to the deception — and also we were losing money ourselves, as Peter lives on a small proportion of the remaining profits after Matthew had squeezed out his extra commission.’

‘Did he tell Walter?

She shook her head, tears slowly dribbling down her cheeks. ‘Walter died before Peter’s ultimatum to Matthew ran out. Then, of course, we began to worry in case Matthew was behind Walter’s death, in order to prevent the scandal from being revealed.’

De Wolfe digested this and saw there was a faint possibility of a yet unsuspected motive for Knapman’s murder. But he returned to the matter of the testament. ‘Did your husband say that he intended taking action over this situation?’

She looked up fearfully and shook her head, but John felt that she was refusing to admit, even to herself, what she feared deep down. ‘And you have no idea where he is now?’

She shook her head again, wordlessly, and de Wolfe tapped Gwyn on the arm, jerking his head towards the door.

Outside, as they swung themselves into their saddles, de Wolfe was grim-faced as he spoke. ‘I’ve a bad feeling about this. Let’s get ourselves back to Polsloe as quickly as we can.’

When they returned to the priory, everything seemed as they had left it. Philip Courteman was still slumped on his bench in the infirmary, holding his sore, bandaged head in his hands, half asleep from a potion they had given him to ease the pain.

Dame Madge, somewhat puzzled by the coroner’s speedy reappearance, assured him that Mistress Knapman was still sleeping peacefully. Hermotherhad been sitting with her, but had just gone to the refectory to eat, the excitements of the day being insufficient to affect her appetite.

De Wolfe stood indecisively in the infirmary, having sent Gwyn to scout around the grounds to see if there was any sign of Peter Jordan, who was now a suspect. While he waited for his officer to return, he conversed with the gaunt nun, for whom he had considerable regard. They reminisced about the previous case in which she had been so helpful, and in turn, the nun enquired after the state of body and mind of Christina Rifford, the portreeve’s daughter who had been so sorely ravished a few months earlier.

Suddenly their amiable conversation was rent by a scream from beyond the door of the adjacent cell where Joan was resting, followed by a crash, roars and yelling from a distance. The coroner rushed to the door, Dame Madge at his shoulder, and burst into the small, bare room.

Joan was sitting up on the low bed, clutching a blanket across her bosom. Muzzy from the sleeping potion, she croaked through her bruised throat. ‘A man was there!’ She pointed shakily with her free hand to the unshuttered window. Below it, a table that had carried a wooden crucifix and a jug of water lay overturned on the floor. The window opening was empty, and when de Wolfe peered out he could see nothing but the open garden around the priory buildings — but fading shouts and thudding feet told of something amiss out there. He ran out of the room and through the outer door, turning right to follow the sounds of pursuit. Among the indistinct shouts, the only word he caught was ‘Sanctuary!’

The stone chapel lay across the garden and he ran as fast as his long legs would carry him, outstripping the nun, whose long skirts hampered her muscular legs. Once round the corner of the chapel, he skidded to a halt at a remarkable sight. Gwyn was in the process of hurling a writhing body over the drystone wall that formed the boundary of the priory on to some wasteground lying between it and the surrounding trees. His officer then vaulted the wall in a single leap, with one hand on the top, and dropped from sight, though his roars and another’s yells rose from behind the stone barrier. As de Wolfe ran across, he heard Gwyn snarl, ‘This is the only sanctuary you’ll get, you evil little bastard!’

Peering over the wall, he saw the tousle-haired Cornishman sitting astride a smaller figure, his massive hands pinning the wrists to the ground. Near the trapped fingers of the right hand, a naked dagger lay in the coarse grass. Gwyn’s body obscured the captive’s face, but on moving along the wall, de Wolfe saw, without surprise, that it was Peter Jordan. His face was twisted into a mask of hate as he struggled ineffectually to free himself, spitting oaths and invective.

Hearing a rustle alongside him, John turned to find Dame Madge also peering over the wall. He took her arm gently and pulled her away. ‘I fear his language is hardly suitable for your ears, Sister.’

She smiled at him, and her stern face lit with an almost mischievous radiance. ‘I am no recluse, Crowner, but a working sister who goes among the people every day. I doubt there is a single new oath you could teach me.’ Her smile faded as she pointed towards the wall, where Gwyn could be heard hauling the prisoner to his feet amid a barrage of curses. ‘I have no idea what this is about, Sir John, but was that man trying to harm the young lady?’

De Wolfe nodded, as several other sisters, Lucy and a couple of priory menservants came running towards them.

‘I think he had climbed half through that window when Gwyn caught him just in time. He had a knife in his hand and was trying to finish what his paid assassin had failed to do in the forest this morning.’

Dame Madge grimaced in despair at the vileness of men, then became her usual efficient self, sending the others about their business and telling Lucy to attend to her frightened daughter. De Wolfe walked back to a gate in the wall and hurried after Gwyn, who was frog-marching Peter Jordan around the perimeter to the front of the priory. ‘Best keep this young swine clear of the chapel, Crowner. He might make another break for sanctuary.’

De Wolfe knew that, strictly speaking, sanctuary could have been claimed anywhere within the priory grounds: it was not necessary to enter a church — and certainly not to be at the altar, as some mistakenly believed. But he held his tongue, trusting that Jordan was unaware of this. Also, he did not want to deflate Gwyn’s pride in having cornered the villain.

The villain in question had fallen silent, perhaps thinking that the less he said, the less could be held against him. His face was ghastly white against his drooping black moustache and his eyes held a hint of madness, which de Wolfe felt must be genuine, as no one in their right mind would hope to get away with openly knifing the only person who stood between him and Knapman’s fortune.

‘Now, what do we do with this creature?’ asked Gwyn, as they reached the road at the front of the priory.

‘You take him back to Rougemont and give him into Stigand’s tender care.’

De Wolfe helped Gwyn to tie the wrists of the now silent captive with a length of rope, the other end being lashed to the saddle of his officer’s horse. He watched as they set off for Exeter at a walking pace, Jordan half dragged, half stumbling behind the mare on the mile-long journey, which John expected to be his last sight of the outside world until he was taken to the gallows beyond Magdalen Street.

He saw them vanish through the trees, then went back into the infirmary to check on Mistress Knapman’s condition after her fright, and to offer a final apology to Dame Madge for the disturbance of the normally placid life of Polsloe Priory. At the same time, he craved the permission of the amiable prioress to hold an inquest in the yard next day, as the body of Oswin still lay in the shed that was their tiny mortuary.

Late that afternoon, John de Wolfe marched across the drying mud of Rougemont’s inner ward towards the undercroft of the keep. Gwyn and Thomas were at his heels, the clerk carrying his shapeless bag containing parchments, ink and quill.

They went down the few steps and under the forbidding archway that led into the gloomy cavern, half below ground, that extended under the whole keep. One part was open, with a filthy floor of packed earth that acted as store-room, torture chamber and lodging for the gaoler. The other half was partitioned by a wall, in which a gate of rusty iron bars gave access to half a dozen cells of indescribable squalor.

Gwyn went across to an archway screened by a wattle hurdle and woke the gaoler with a none-too-gentle prod of his boot. Muttering and swearing, Stigand staggered to his feet and waddled over to the gate, jangling some keys on a ring at his belt. Inside, the cells led off a short passage and the surly custodian unlocked the first door on the left, then stood aside to let them enter.

In the semi-darkness, it took de Wolfe a moment to make out the occupant, sitting dejectedly on the slate slab that served as a bed. A cracked earthenware jug and a stinking leather bucket stood on the soiled straw of the floor, through which a rat rustled its way to a corner.

Although Peter Jordan had been incarcerated for only a few hours, he was already filthy from his surroundings: every surface in the cell was coated with a mixture of oozing damp, mould and the excretions of previous tenants.

He looked up, and in the gloom de Wolfe could see that his dejection had turned to defiance. ‘You’ll regret this mistake, Crowner!’ he hissed, his voice trembling with emotion.

‘Not nearly as much as you will, lad, when you’re standing on a ladder with a rope around your neck,’ replied John evenly.

‘I’ve done nothing wrong — and you can’t prove that I have.’

Gwyn prodded Jordan’s shoulder with a finger, jerking him backwards. ‘What about climbing in at your stepmother’s window with a knife in your hand?’

‘I had no knife in my hand — I drew that after you assaulted me, to defend myself, you great brute!’

Gwyn burst out laughing, his guffaws echoing through the vault, but de Wolfe’s black brows came together in anxiety. This was no ignorant villager they had to deal with but an intelligent merchant, with two lawyers in his wife’s family. ‘I’m here to take your confession, Jordan,’ he said. ‘You can add anything in your defence, and my clerk will record it all for the King’s justices, when they come to try you at the Assize.’

The captive spat contemptuously into the straw. ‘Confession be damned! I’ve nothing to confess — nor anything else to say to you, unless my father-in-law is here to protect me.’

The coroner sighed. This was going to be more difficult that he had expected. ‘How did you get Oswin to kill for you? Was it just a matter of money?’

Jordan looked straight ahead when he answered. ‘I know nothing of Oswin’s acts. He is Matthew’s man, and you are talking to the wrong person.’

‘It wasn’t Matthew who climbed through the priory window,’ said Gwyn.

‘I was only trying to see how Joan was faring, after her ordeal.’

Both de Wolfe and Gwyn barked in amusement at this remark.

‘Did her room have no door, that you needed to clamber through the window?’ chortled the Cornishman.

‘That damned brother-in-law of mine was sitting outside. I wanted to avoid him.’

De Wolfe nodded. ‘Because he misled you over the testament?’

Peter’s head jerked up. ‘That’s no crime, to want to learn what your rightful inheritance might be.’

‘But killing your stepfather was a crime — and for nothing, as it turned out. Philip’s information about the will was out of date.’

‘I did not kill Walter — I have not killed anyone!’ He dropped his eyes to the floor again. ‘I have nothing more to say to you.’

De Wolfe folded his arms under his cloak and stood hunched over the figure drooping on the slab. ‘You would do better to talk to me, Peter. There are others who do the sheriff’s bidding who favour more violent methods of extracting confessions.’

The young man remained silent, and from then on refused to say another word. Gwyn offered to ‘persuade’ him, and waved a huge fist under his nose, but de Wolfe pulled him out of the cell and motioned to the wheezing gaoler to lock up again.

On the way out of the undercroft, with Thomas trailing behind, his parchments unsullied, John was philosophical about their wasted visit. ‘There’s nothing I can use at the inquest tomorrow, if he refuses to confess. All we can do is record all that’s known and let Hubert Walter’s judges sort it out when they come.’

‘If they come,’ muttered Gwyn under his breath.

That evening over supper, de Wolfe dutifully told his wife of the day’s events. She seemed moderately interested because a rich widow and the nuns of Polsloe were involved, as well as the city’s most prominent lawyer and his family. As her husband had slept at home the past couple of nights, she had little to nag him about, though he knew that he would pay dearly for a long time over his part in the downfall of Theobald Fitz-Ivo, which reflected badly on Matilda’s brother. She had also lost another weapon from her armoury of abuse now that he had ceased his visits to the Bush Inn, though she could still throw some cynical barbs at him over his rejection by his mistress. ‘And where are we going tonight, husband?’ she asked, with mock sweetness, when he announced that he was taking Brutus for a walk. ‘To the Golden Hind or the Plough? Though I hear the whores are more numerous at the Saracen.’

Without deigning to answer, he whistled to the hound and went out through the screens, slamming the door resoundingly behind him.