The Manor of Death

by Bernard Knight

  Thomas recorded the proceedings, but these were so sparse that they hardly covered half a leaf of parchment, a palimpsest made by erasing previous writing by scraping and chalking. By then, evening was upon them and, with instructions to the bailiff to send messages to Axminster to convey the sad tidings to the relatives and arrange for the bodies to be collected, the coroner and his officer and clerk set off on the five mile journey back to Honiton, where they could find a tavern that would provide a meal and a pallet in the loft for the night:

  After they had supped the thin potage and eaten a mutton pie with boiled leeks and cabbage, the three investigators sat around a small glowing firepit in the middle of the taproom for a survey of the day's events. As darkness fell outside, Gwyn drank cider, John had a quart of ale and Thomas sipped a cup of indifferent wine with an expression that suggested it was a cough linctus from the village apothecary.

  'This has been a sad day for the king's peace in this county,' said de Wolfe in a mournful voice that held an undertone of anger. 'The man was a fool in some respects, but his loyalties were in the right place.'

  Gwyn sucked his moustache dry, then replied. 'It galls me to think that there are bastards at large in this area who seem to act as they think fit, then crush anyone who gets in their way! '

  Thomas took another cautious sip of his red wine. 'I've not been privy to all that you have seen in Axmouth. Are we thinking all these deaths - the ship's boy, the pedlar and now the Keeper and his clerk - are all part of the same conspiracy - whatever that might be?'

  The coroner glowered into the fire and nodded. 'I am convinced they are, Thomas. The lad was eliminated because his conscience was driving him towards betraying the wanton savagery of pirates. But as to who did it, we have no idea yet.'

  'What about the pedlar and the Keeper?' asked Gwyn. 'A knight and one very little above a beggar - why should their deaths be linked?'

  'Because they both showed too much interest in what was being carted about the countryside,' replied de Wolfe. 'A pity there are so many damned carters about these days, otherwise we could lean on a few of them and see what they have to say.'

  Gwyn grunted dismissively. 'If their mouths are as tight as these folk in Axmouth, we'd learn nothing at all!' he growled.

  The coroner's trio left Honiton early in the morning, but not so early that they missed breaking their fast. At the inn, they were given oatmeal gruel sweetened with honey, one of Thomas's favourites. Gwyn had already eaten enough for a horse before they were given a couple of eggs and slices of salt bacon fried in pork dripping. A loaf of fresh rye bread with butter and cheese was washed down with weak ale, the whole meal being sufficient to get the Cornishman to Exeter before he needed refuelling again.

  They set off along the high road and rode in silence for a while. Though de Wolfe had found the Keeper an irritating person, he was saddened by his violent death and felt a glowering anger that a royal law officer had been so mistreated when he was doing his duty, however unwisely he went about it.

  Typically for April, the weather was changeable and today there was a brisk wind pushing heavy grey clouds rapidly across the sky from the west. Occasional spats of rain came down, not enough to dampen them significantly, though Thomas pulled his black mantle closer about him as he trotted along in the wake of the two bigger horses. He was thinking holy thoughts, mainly about when he could save enough from his small stipend to afford a new copy of the Vulgate of St Jerome, his old one being so used that the pages were frayed and the binding falling apart.

  A couple of miles out of Honiton, the road went through an arm of the forest, dense trees, now breaking into leaf, crowding close on either side of the track. As it curved to the left, Gwyn's keen hearing picked out some distant commotion ahead of them.

  'Some trouble brewing, by the sounds of it,' he grunted and touched his mare's flanks with his heels to speed her up. John' followed suit, leaving Thomas behind but soon able to hear shouts and yells in the distance. As they rounded the bend they saw a mélée in front of them, and both coroner and his officer kicked their mounts into a canter, hoisting out their swords as they went. As they approached, de Wolfe saw that three men were trying to fight off half a dozen ruffians but were losing the battle. Two other persons were lying on the ground, and a pair of mules and several horses were loose, nervously trying to escape into the trees. One of the defenders had a sword but seemed to be using it clumsily left-handed, his other arm hanging at his side. The other two had staves and were swinging them at assailants armed with clubs and a short pike.

  With loud roars, the coroner and his officer thundered down at the tumult, and suddenly the attackers became aware of two large horses bearing down on them, one of them a massive destrier. Each carried a large man waving a wicked-looking broadsword, screaming imprecations that suggested that they were only too happy to use their blades to sever heads from bodies!

  The half-dozen outlaws abruptly abandoned their attack and ran for the shelter of the forest, three to each side of the track. Gwyn galloped after one trio and caught the laggard such a blow with his sword that he virtually severed his arm at the shoulder, the other two melting into the trees. On the opposite side, John ran down one man, who vanished under the huge hairy feet of Odin, but again the other two disappeared into the dense forest, where de Wolfe felt disinclined to follow.

  The two law officers wheeled back to the road and slid from their mounts to see what damage had been done to the travellers, just as Thomas clopped up on his palfrey. He went straight to the man with the sword, who had sunk to the ground, groaning and clasping his injured right arm. Blood was trickling from the cuff of his leather jerkin, dripping off his fingers on to the earth. As Gwyn and de Wolfe went to look at the two other inert figures lying in the road, the little priest supported the injured man and tried to see what damage had been done.

  'One of the swine cut me with a pike,' muttered the victim, a dark-haired man of about thirty. He was pale and sweating with shock, as one of the two other defenders came to his side, the other one limping across to where the coroner and Gwyn were attending to the fallen pair. This new arrival had a livid bruise across his face and forehead where he had been struck by some blunt weapon, but seemed otherwise unhurt.

  'Owain, how are you faring?' he asked solicitously, dropping on one knee alongside Thomas.

  'We had best get his arm out of that sleeve and see what needs to be done,' suggested Thomas, and with the bruised man giving a running commentary of thanks for their timely rescue they gently pulled Owain's jerkin half-off, to expose a long but seemingly shallow cut running down the forearm.

  As Thomas squeezed the upper arm to stanch the flow, the older man produced a relatively clean linen cloth from his pouch and wrapped it tightly around the slashed arm. 'That's better, friends. I feel halfway to being recovered already!' said Owain. 'Thank God the cut looks less serious than I feared. I need that arm to make my living!'

  His colour had certainly improved, and Thomas had a chance to look around to see what was happening to the other victims. For the first time he realised that the two fallen men were priests, rather corpulent men in black cassocks and cloaks. Presumably, they were the ones who had been riding the mules, which were now being rounded up by the second defender. The three horses, reassured by the presence of the impassive Odin and Gwyn's brown mare, were unconcernedly cropping the new grass of the verge.

  'Bloody outlaws! Every bastard one of them should be rounded up and hanged!' swore the man attending to Owain. He was a florid, middle-aged man in good quality clothes, and Thomas marked him down as a merchant, like the other man who had coaxed the mules back into the road.

  'We must get you into Exeter and have you treated at St John's Priory,' said Thomas to the younger man with the slashed arm. 'Can you get to your feet now?'

  With help from the other two, Owain got up and, with his damaged arm cradled against his chest, was able to walk to the edge of the road, where he sat on a fallen log. By
now, the two priests had begun to groan and move, both having suffered blows to the head by the staves of the ruffians who had attacked them. A few minutes later they had crawled to a sitting position, though one vomited copiously into the grass before squatting with his bruised head in his hands.

  Gwyn ambled over to look at the outlaw that he had struck with his sword, but the man was stone dead, lying in a great pool of sticky blood that had gushed from a large artery, severed under his collarbone. 'One less for the gallows!' observed Gwyn cheerfully. 'What about the other one, Crowner?'

  At the opposite side of the track, de Wolfe found that the scoundrel that Odin had trodden on was equally dead, his chest and head almost flattened by the iron-shod hooves of the old warhorse.

  One of the merchants had a wineskin on his saddle and this helped to restore everyone's spirits, as explanations were offered while the two priests recovered their wits. Owain's wound seemed to have stopped bleeding, thanks to a tightly twisted kerchief bound around his upper arm.

  The two older men were merchants from Bristol, travelling to Exeter to arrange purchases of wool. 'I thought that riding in a company of five men would be enough to keep us safe from trail-bastons like those,' grunted one under his breath. 'I forgot that two were damned priests who would not have so much as a club to defend themselves with!'

  These holy men were canons from Wells, going to Exeter Cathedral on some ecclesiastical errand. Owain was also going to the same great church, but on quite different business.

  'I am a stonemason and especially a stone carver,' he explained. 'That's why I am so concerned about my arm - it had to be the right one, too, the one I use most to earn my living.'

  Gwyn and John de Wolfe soon realised that he was a Welshman and began speaking to him in their common Celtic language. His full name was Owain ap Gronow and he came from Chepstow on the Welsh border, though his work often took him to Gloucester Cathedral. He had been recommended from there to the Chapter in Exeter, who needed some expert carving done on a new shrine.

  'As long as the wound does not suppurate, it should heal well,' advised John, who had seen every possible injury during twenty years on battlefields from Ireland to the Holy Land. 'We'll get you to Brother Saulf at St John's in the city; he's a wonder with such problems. You'll be carving again in a fortnight!'

  After half an hour order was restored and their journey was ready to be started again. The two canons, still shaky but anxious to get to the safety of Exeter, were hauled up on to their mules, and Owain was lifted up behind Gwyn on his mare, as his arm was too fragile to control the reins. With his rounsey on a halter behind one of the merchants, they set off on the remaining seven miles to the city, leaving the two slain outlaws to rot away in the bushes at the side of the road.

  By early afternoon the party had reached Exeter and the injured stonemason had been delivered into the care of the healing monks at St John's Priory, while the travelling priests were settled in the cathedral Close. The coroner had called on his friend John de Alençon to explain what had happened, and with his nephew Thomas's fussy assistance the archdeacon had personally arranged for the assaulted canons to be accommodated in the guest rooms attached to the bishop's palace on the south side of the great church.

  When all this was done, John went wearily back to his house, still aching from the effects of the long ride. Not unsurprisingly, his wife was absent, and as Mary bustled around to get him some food she told him that her mistress had left the previous day and had not returned.

  'She said she was going to seek God, so I suppose she's gone as usual to pray at St Olave's.' Her brow furrowed. 'Though she wore her oldest kirtle and cloak, which is odd, as she always dresses up for the priest's benefit. And she must have gone to stay with someone overnight.'

  'God must be bloody fed up with listening to her, day after day!' grumbled John irreverently. 'What does she find to say to Him all the time?'

  'Praying for forgiveness for you - and for her brother, Sir Coroner!' replied the maid tartly as she put a wooden bowl of steaming potage in front of him.

  He sat on the only stool in the small shed that she called home, where the cooking was done as well. Mary called him 'Sir Coroner' only when she was annoyed with his behaviour, though he failed to see what he had done this time to deserve her sarcasm. She held a flat pan containing beef dripping over the fire to fry two eggs and some pieces of salt bacon. As she slid these on to a thick slice of bread in lieu of a platter and laid them on the small table, Mary elaborated on her criticisms.

  'You'll lose her one of these days, mark my words. There's only so much a woman can take from the men around her.'

  Normally, a servant being this outspoken would receive a buffet from her master, but John had a respect and affection for his maid that were not wholly due to their former intimacy in the back of the washshed. As he ate, he grunted his excuses. 'She's hardly been a good wife to me, Mary. Without you, I'd have starved and gone around in dirty rags. All she cares about is her damned devotions and her snobbish friends at the cathedral and St Olave's.'

  Mary shook her head sadly. 'She's changed lately. I can see it in her face and her very movements. You are a trial to her, with your well-known infidelities, but I think it is her brother who has driven her to this state of despair.'

  Richard de Revelle's sister had previously worshipped her elder brother, but had been progressively disenchanted as his bad behaviour was exposed - mainly by her own husband, which made matters worse. His expulsion from his post as sheriff, followed by an ignominious episode in which he had been publicly shamed in an ordeal by battle, seemed to have driven Matilda into a descending spiral of depression and despair.

  'So where has she gone, d'you think?' he demanded between mouthfuls of food and cider.

  Mary shrugged and stood over him with arms crossed over her bosom in a faintly defiant attitude. 'You tell me, sir! I doubt she's gone to her brother's house, though I hear that he is back from his manor and is in his fine town house in Northgate Street.'

  'Could she be at her cousin's place in Fore Street?' he hazarded.

  'I doubt she would have left all her fine clothes behind, if she went there. The mistress is too fond of showing off to her 'poor relative', as she calls her!' she added sarcastically.

  He rubbed the platter clean with a piece of bread, then stopped with it halfway to his mouth as a sudden thought struck him. 'Surely she hasn't gone back to Polsloe?' he exclaimed. 'She did that last year but soon found the food and raiment not at all to her liking.'

  Again Mary shrugged. 'That was last year; she's more desperate now.'

  John sighed as he finished his food and drink. 'If you say de Revelle is back at his town house, I'd best go around there and see if Matilda is with him - or whether he knows anything of her.'

  A few minutes later he was loping through the busy streets of Exeter, shouldering aside porters struggling under huge bales of wool and dodging men wheeling barrows full of firewood. Swineherds drove fat pigs towards the Shambles for street slaughter, and the raucous voices of stallholders rang out from the booths that lined the roads, selling everything from sausages to shovels. On street corners, barbers shouted invitations for shaves and haircutting - and at Carfoix, the central crossing of the main roads, a villainous-looking fellow waved a pair of pincers, offering to pull any painful teeth. The whole motley throng was part of this vibrant city, thriving on its exports of tin, cloth and wool – even the beggars and vagrants seemed more prosperous than in other towns.

  De Wolfe was oblivious to these familiar scenes, his mind full of his own problems, foremost amongst them now being the whereabouts of his wife. Though he could not abide the woman, he was responsible for her well-being and could not ignore the fact that she had disappeared.

  His brother-in-law, though he had two large manors in the far west and in the east of the county, had recently bought a house near the North Gate, allegedly for convenience in dealing with various business ventures in the city, one o
f which was a college in Smythen Street. When his steward ushered John into the solar at the rear of his hall, he was far from pleased to see him. Relations between them, which had always been cool, had hardened into thick ice since Richard had been publicly shamed over the most recent of his misdoings. Yet the coroner's visit seemed not unexpected, as Richard's first words confirmed.

  'I suppose you've come enquiring after your grossly misused wife?' he snapped, his pointed beard quivering with indignation.

  De Wolfe was in no mood for verbal battles with a man he despised, and he managed to subdue an angry reply. 'I suspect that of late I contributed only a small part to your sister's unhappiness. She is not at home, so do you know where she is?'

  'She called yesterday to bid me farewell, as she is entering a nunnery. You have driven her to take the veil, damn you!'

  John was only partly surprised, though he thought that her previous attempt to cut herself off from the world had disenchanted her with the idea.

  'I presume she has gone to Polsloe again?' he said evenly.

  Richard nodded sullenly, piqued that he had not provoked the coroner into a rage. 'She said she never wanted to lay eyes on you again, John!' Then he added in a rare fit of frankness, 'Nor upon me, either!'

  There seemed nothing else to say, and de Wolfe turned on his heel and left the house without another word. As he strode back along Northgate Street, his mind was in turmoil, trying to sort out the implications of this news. Would she stay there this time, he wondered? And if so, what was to become of his marriage? Could he get an annulment, given that his friend the archdeacon was dubious about the prospects of success? And if he did, would he be free to marry Nesta? And would she really want him, with her ingrained conviction that a knight and an alehouse keeper were socially incompatible? Could he remain the king's coroner if he did - or even stay on in Exeter? And then what of Gwyn and Thomas, to say nothing of his house, his maid, his horse and his hound?