The Manor of Death

by Bernard Knight

  This was the first Nesta had heard of the voyage and, after he had explained all about it, she affected an indignation that John suspected was not all play-acting. 'Not only does the royal coroner neglect his wife but he leaves his lover to fend for herself as well! Will you be back this year, do you think?' she added sarcastically.

  He grinned sheepishly. 'Within a couple of weeks, God willing. It's the king's business; I have to go.'

  'Well, when you return, don't be surprised if I've run off with the baker or the butcher - or even that nice Welsh stonemason!'

  Her tone was light, but John wondered why she had so readily added on the last part. It must have been lying sleeping in her mind, he thought sourly. Yet the pretty redhead prattled on about the lavish present she expected him to bring her from France, and her manner with him seemed as relaxed and skittish as always. After Gwyn had lumbered away to a game of dice with the soldiers in Rougemont and Thomas had slid away to his shared lodging in Priest Street, John stayed to enjoy a supper of boiled mutton, leeks and beans, before enjoying a different experience up in the little room in the loft.

  With Matilda away, he stayed the entire night and, in spite of his earlier concerns about Nesta, found her to be even more enthusiastic than usual about their lovemaking. His own responses were similarly uninhibited and afterwards, as he lay staring up into the darkness of the roof beams, he wondered if the frustration he had experienced with Hilda had sharpened his senses, But in that case, he thought darkly, might something similar have stimulated Nesta?

  Then he thought of the very public ward in St John's and the fact that the stone carver had one arm in a sling. Reassured, he rolled over to put an arm around Nesta's bare shoulders and was soon asleep.

  In Axmouth two days later, it was as if history had slipped backwards two or three centuries to the dark days of the Viking raids, except that this incursion came from the land rather than the sea. The leader of the marauding band was a massive man with a forked beard and, though his round iron helmet had no horns attached, he could have been taken for some Norse chieftain, with his chain-mail hauberk, massive broadsword and a spiked mace at his saddlebow. He was in fact Ralph Morin, the constable of Exeter Castle, and he led a score of mounted men-at-arms in full campaign order. Ralph was well aware that he was unlikely to have to fight a pitched battle with the villagers of Axmouth, but he wanted to show that the authorities took this seriously - as well as a welcome chance to give these idle soldiers a work-out, as few had raised a weapon in anger for years.

  As the troop came down the road towards the landward gate, their harnesses jingling, Morin turned in his saddle to look at the, pair behind him. John de Wolfe was riding alongside Gwyn and, behind them, Sergeant Gabriel kept company with Thomas de Peyne.

  'Where do you want to start, John?' demanded the constable.

  The coroner, who wore a helmet and sword but no armour, pointed ahead. 'Get Gabriel to take your men down to the wharves alongside the river, beyond the further gate. Make sure no one goes in or out of the storehouses, for these crafty bastards might well hide something if they're not watched like hawks.'

  They entered the top of the main street of the large village, ignoring the surprised inhabitants who gaped at this sudden appearance of such a show of force. As the grizzled sergeant carried on with his troop down towards the seaward end, the coroner and the constable, with Gwyn and the clerk behind them, peeled off and dismounted outside the house of Edward Northcote. Disturbed by the noise, Northcote emerged from his door, followed by Elias Palmer and a florid faced man in a brown robe, a shaven tonsure marking him as a cleric, presumably in one of the lower orders.

  'What in hell's going on?' demanded the bailiff angrily. 'Have the French landed that you need to bring half the army down here?'

  Though Northcote was a big man, Ralph Morin dwarfed him, looking even more threatening in his armour. He thrust a parchment under Northcote's nose, a sheet with an impressive red seal dangling from it. Neither could read it, but the bailiff angrily passed it to the portreeve.

  'What's this about, Elias?' he snapped. The skinny official rapidly scanned the words. 'It's a warrant from Henry de Furnellis, demanding in the name of the king that all stocks and wares and any documents relating to trade in Axmouth be made available for inspection by the sheriff's representatives, namely Sir John de Wolfe, coroner, and Ralph Morin, castellan.'

  Edward Northcote grabbed the parchment from Elias and waved it aloft. 'Holy Mary, do you mean to say you brought half the garrison down here just to go rooting through our store-sheds?' he jeered at the top of his voice. 'Are you all mad up in Exeter, that you waste your time and disturb hard-working folk with your nonsense?'

  De Wolfe stepped forward to confront the bailiff. 'The sooner we start, the sooner we can leave you to your important work,' he said sarcastically. 'Let your man Elias Palmer here show us his lists and manifests of what should be in the warehouses. We have brought my clerk here, who can read what is necessary.'

  'He's not the only one here who is literate, Crowner, so don't judge all men by yourself.' This scathing remark came from the fat-faced man in the monkish robe.

  'And who the hell might you be?' growled the coroner, resenting someone who made public jibes about his lack of education.

  'I am Brother Absalom, the assistant cellarer of the Priory of Loders. I am charged by the prior with supervising his interests in this manor, which belongs to the priory.' He swelled up visibly with self-importance, reminding John of one of the bullfrogs that he had seen on his foreign travels. 'In fact, I consider your presence here and this note from the sheriff to be illegal,' he continued. 'This village and port belong to a French religious house and as such is outside the jurisdiction of the civil authorities!'

  John moved closer and poked the clerk in the chest with a long finger. 'In relation to your cure of souls here, I agree with you, brother,' he grated. 'But if your religious house chooses to indulge in trade and reap the benefits of that, then you are subject to all the laws and practices of England.' He paused to give the lay brother another jab in-the chest.

  'Furthermore, we are seeking a murderer and have good reason to suspect that illegal acts against both property and persons may have been committed or fomented here. So just keep your monastic comments to yourself and stay out of our way!'

  The prior's man went even redder in the face and began protesting, but John ignored him and turned to Edward Northcote and his shadow, Elias Palmer. 'I hope you are not going to be difficult over this, or we will have to take you back to Rougemont to question you further in less salubrious surroundings,' he threatened. 'Thomas, go with the portreeve and see that he gives you the right documents relating to the current imports and exports.'

  As his clerk followed the reluctant Elias back into the bailiff's dwelling, Northcote's anger seemed to have subsided to a puzzled concern. 'Crowner, I don't understand this! Why this overstated show of force? True, there may be some small irregularities in the way the goods are tallied for the king's Customs levy, but that is a minor matter, mainly due to the inefficiency of John Capie. But a troop of armed soldiers and threats of arrest - that seems excessive.'

  There was a certain tinge of sincerity in his voice that puzzled John. Could this man be a villain and a possible murderer?

  'There is more to it than that, bailiff. We have a ship's boy cruelly slain and his body buried, then we have one of the king's law officers murdered. The last death, and certainly the killing of a pedlar, have fingers pointing at Axmouth.'

  Edward Northcote bridled at this. 'That's sheer supposition, Crowner! You have no proof whatsoever that our village is concerned in any of that - apart from the dead boy, which I firmly maintain was some drunken dispute between shipmen, notorious for their drunken violence.'

  De Wolfe glowered at the indignant bailiff. 'Be that as it may, we need to check your records against what is found in your sheds.'

  Northcote glared back at him, but it was the monkish fe
llow from Loders who broke in. 'I can see that it might be within your remit to investigate these deaths, but what possible right can a coroner have to come poking his nose into matters of commerce?'

  'The right of a king's law officer to pursue whatever task is allotted to him!' snapped de Wolfe. 'A coroner can be given a commission by the king or his agents to look into anything in the realm. And I have been commanded by the sheriff - who represents the king in this county of Devon - to investigate certain serious allegations concerning the conduct of the port of Axmouth.'

  As if to highlight his words, he turned back to Northcote. 'Is that vessel The Tiger in the harbour at present?'

  The bailiff shook his head. 'No, she left the river a couple of days ago, bound for Ouistreham in Normandy with wool. Should be home next week, bringing fine Caen stone back to build some church.'

  De Wolfe was disappointed as he wondered, though without much foundation, whether each return of The Tiger might coincide with illicit goods appearing in the quayside barns. His suspicion of that vessel was based mainly on the fact that the dead Simon had been a crew member and had been so agitated on his return from his last voyage - as well as a personal dislike of her shipmaster, Martin Rof.

  Soon, Thomas came out of the house with the portreeve, who clutched a bundle of parchments under his arm. 'What do you want done with these?' he demanded querulously.

  'We'll all take a walk down to the quayside and check what's in the sheds against those documents of yours,' said the coroner, already starting to lope towards the gate.

  'They'll not be up to date,' called Elias from behind him. 'There are two cogs unloading there today, and John Capie won't have brought me his tallies for them yet.'

  He shuffled along behind, followed by the bailiff and Absalom, Ralph Morin bringing up the rear. When they reached the spot on the river bank where two vessels were berthed, they found that Gabriel had stopped the men from unloading while the inventory of the big sheds across the road was being made.

  'You are interfering with our work, Crowner,' croaked Elias Palmer. 'We still have to pay these men and now they are all sitting on their backsides while you waste our time.'

  A couple of men-at-arms were stationed at the doors of each of the four warehouses, one of which was open, with a disgruntled John Capie standing with a bundle of tallies in his hand. 'This new stuff is cloth from Cologne and some dried fruit and wine from Barfleur,' he protested.

  'It's what else might be in these storehouses than concerns me,' snapped de Wolfe. 'I want everything checked against those lists that the portreeve is holding so close to his chest.'

  Two hours later, de Wolfe was even more disappointed, as the laborious business of identifying every item in the cavernous barns with the sheets of parchment that Elias had produced had revealed nothing that could be construed as illegal or even suspicious. It was true that many of the casks and crates had little or no markings upon them, and the bales of wool waiting to be shipped out had nothing on them but splashes of different-coloured dyes to denote the place of origin, according to a list that the portreeve held. But overall the total number of different classes of merchandise corresponded with the manifests. There were some errors, but with such a random method as Capie's knots and sticks it was to be expected that there were a few discrepancies.

  By early afternoon the coroner and constable had to admit defeat, in that they had found no evidence of malpractice in Axmouth. The bailiff and the brother from Loders had stood around during the search in bored resentment, and when finally the search was called off they were full of righteous indignation.

  'Now that you have wasted half our day and slowed the discharge of the cargo from those two vessels, perhaps you will go away and leave us in peace!' snorted Edward Northcote.

  'The prior will hear of this, you may be assured of that!' brayed Absalom. 'I have no doubt that he will complain to the bishop about this intrusion.'

  'What the devil has the bishop got to do with anything?' countered Morin. 'He's no say in the enforcement of the law in this county.'

  'Then I'll complain to the Archbishop of Canterbury.'

  De Wolfe leered at him, grateful for even a small victory. 'Then I'll be happy to convey your complaints to him personally, for I'm about to sail to Normandy to see him!'

  Rightly suspecting that they would now receive little hospitality in Axmouth, the party saddled up and left the village, stopping instead a few miles along the homeward road for refreshment. At a roadside clearing near Colyford, the men-at-arms dismounted from their short-legged moorland horses and sprawled amongst the weeds to pass around skins of ale and cider and eat the bread and meat they had brought in their saddle-pouches. Leaving the sergeant to keep order, their leaders rode the quarter-mile into the village and used the solitary tavern to assuage their hunger and thirst.

  De Wolfe ordered bread, cheese and cold mutton for the four of them, and while the ale-wife went off to prepare the food they sat hunched on a couple of benches drinking the thin brew and discussing the fiasco in Axmouth.

  'You are sure those lists corresponded to what was in the barns?' grumbled the constable, less aware than John how meticulous Thomas de Peyne was in such matters. The little clerk stoutly defended himself and pointed out a gaping flaw in their attempt to unmask any evildoing.

  'The manifests of Elias were well written and convincing, and I had no problem in matching the items with the goods,' he said. 'But of course we have no way of knowing how true those lists were!'

  De Wolfe peered at his clerk from under his black brows. He had every respect for Thomas's perspicacity but did not follow his train of thought here. 'What d'you mean, not true?'

  'Well, the lists could just as well have been written to deliberately conform with what's in the sheds at any time. That doesn't mean that the stuff came off a particular ship and was checked in by John Capie. If the bailiff and the portreeve and anyone else down there feared that they might be challenged - as indeed we did this morning - then they could fabricate those lists as often as necessary, so that everything would appear to be in order.'

  Gwyn tried to follow the sharp little clerk's argument, but failed. 'What the hell d'you mean, Thomas? I don't understand.'

  His small friend gave him a pitying look, but explained again. 'Look, say a pirate ship comes in with stolen goods. The stuff is unloaded into the sheds and straightway a list is made of it, falsely attributing its ownership to various merchants. As I'm sure they shift the material out very quickly, probably inside a day or two, then it would be virtually impossible to verify anyone crate or barrel to some alleged importer in Yeovil or Dorchester. And one bale of wool looks the same as another, and the few markings they have could easily be faked.'

  De Wolfe nodded his understanding. 'So for all we know, some of that stuff we've been handling today might have been pillaged. And there's no way of tracing it back to its alleged owners in time. No way can we go haring around England asking merchants if they had a particular keg of Loire wine through Axmouth last month.'

  As the woman brought them their food, Ralph Morin summed up their day's efforts. 'So we've been wasting our damned time, have we?'

  'Not entirely, I hope,' replied the coroner, spearing a slice of cold meat with his eating knife. 'We've certainly made it clear to them that the law is breathing down their neck, but we're not going to get them hanged by looking at sheets of parchment and sniffing around their warehouses. They've got to be caught red-handed.'

  Thomas watched with trepidation as the gap widened between the ship's side and the edge of the stone quay. Though he had been to sea only once before on a short journey between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, that had been more than sufficient to convince him that he was not cut out to be a sailor. He stood with the coroner and Gwyn on the raised part of the stern deck as the Mary and Child Jesus drifted slowly away from the wharf below Exeter's encircling wall. This rampart came across from the West Gate to the relatively new Watergate, punched through
the wall in response to Exeter's burgeoning trade, which needed better access to its port. As they moved smoothly out, the city hovered above them, sloping up to Rougemont at the furthest and highest point. They passed a section of wall that climbed steeply up to the South Gate, and in minutes they were abeam of low cliffs that lined the eastern side of the Exe.

  The shipmaster, Roger Watts, had waited until the morning flood tide was just at its highest before casting off, so that they could drift down on the ebb to the beginning of the estuary at Topsham and then catch some wind to help them the next few miles to the open sea. Thomas would have a couple of hours' respite on the smooth waters before he began wishing he was dead for the two- or three-day haul across the unforgiving waters between England and Normandy.

  While de Wolfe was indifferent to sea voyages, having crossed many times to Ireland, France and various parts of the Mediterranean, Gwyn was in his element. Trading on his past life as a boy helping his fisherman father in Polruan, he set himself up as an authority on everything maritime and now gazed critically as two youths set the single sail to catch enough wind to give them steerage way in the narrow river. He found nothing to complain about, nor in the way that Roger Watts was handling the steering oar behind them, so he turned to John for a chat.

  'Still no news of your goodwife, Crowner?' He could not stomach the woman, who treated him like dirt when she deigned to notice his existence, but he thought it politic to ask.

  'Not a word!' growled de Wolfe. 'I'm letting her stew until we get back. No doubt she'll be at home by then.' Thomas, who felt greatly relieved that the cog was not yet rolling or pitching, offered some of his unfailing charity. 'No doubt the peace and quiet of Polsloe will calm her disturbed spirits after the upsetting times she has suffered lately, and I pray that she will return refreshed.'