The Noble Outlaw

by Bernard Knight

  'Who's this man Anglicus they call Magister?' asked Nesta.

  'He's the fellow who runs the establishment, the prime teacher there, though I understand there are two others under him,' explained de Wolfe. 'But what amazed me was to find that my dear brother-in-law actually owns the place - and no doubt puts the profits into his purse.'

  Thomas nodded eagerly, his annoyance with Gwyn forgotten. 'He may be on to a good thing, such schools are becoming popular now. Some have sprung up in Northampton and Norwich, but the best-known outside Oxford is here in Exeter, where the poet Joseph Iscanus is magister.'

  'So what do they teach, if it's not reading and writing?' asked Nesta.

  'How to smoke corpses, by the looks of it!' scoffed Gwyn, getting another scourging glare from Thomas.

  'Here it would be the trivium,' the clerk expounded, his own enthusiasm as a teacher spurring him on. 'The three great subjects, Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic. If the school succeeds, then later they may go on to the quadrivium, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy and Music - and even Physic.'

  Impatient with this academic lecture, the coroner turned to his officer and demanded to know if he had any news about the dead man.

  'There's no gossip at the four taverns I visited earlier to suggest anyone's missing,' said Gwyn dolefully. 'The trouble with a big city like Exeter is that folks come and go every day, and no one takes any notice.' He paused to take a huge draught of ale, before continuing. 'In a manor, the tithings keep a strict watch on each member and every villager knows every other freeman and villein but here, you can walk in and out of the five gates and unless you're driving a pig or pushing a barrow, no one says a word to you.'

  The coroner turned to Thomas de Peyne. 'What about you? Any whispers amongst you holy men?' As well as being his clerk, the little man .had part-time employment in the cathedral, teaching some of the choristers to read, working on the archives in the scriptorium and saying early masses for the wealthy deceased who had left annuities for perpetual prayers. It gave him a good opportunity to keep his ear to the ecclesiastical ground, as he was probably the most inquisitive man in Devon. However, today he had drawn a blank in respect of the murdered corpse from the forge.

  'Nothing at all, Crowner,' he admitted sadly. 'From the appearance of his clothing, I think he was a tradesman or merchant, rather than anything to do with the cathedral Close, though of course there are plenty of lay people associated with the running of the diocese.'

  With an admonition to them both to keep trying on the following day, John lazily stood and, with a wink at Nesta, said he was going out into the backyard of the inn to unburden himself of some of his ale against the fence. Gwyn and Thomas knew from experience that this was their cue to leave and reluctantly tore themselves away from the firepit to go out into the cold night air of Idle Lane, where Thomas set off for the room which he shared with a vicar-choral from the cathedral and the Cornishman made for yet another alehouse, with the excellent excuse that he was spying for his master.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In which Crowner John suffers his brother-in-law

  Next morning, the coroner was obliged to attend the Tuesday hangings, to record the event and officially to seize the property of the four felons, which was forfeit to the Crown. The executions were held outside the city at Heavitree, where the gallows stood along Magdalene Street, one of the main roads going eastwards.

  Thomas was there to scribe the details on his parchment sheets, and as usual Gwyn followed in the shadow of his master, partly as bodyguard, but mainly as assistant and companion, as he had done for twenty years in Irish rain, French mists and Levantine sunshine.

  After the wretched victims had dropped from the crossbar of the high scaffold with ropes around their necks, the coroner's team made their way back to the South Gate and de Wolfe strode reluctantly towards his house, aggrieved that no legal emergency had cropped up to use as an excuse to avoid dinner with his brother-in-law. He heard Richard de Revelle' s braying voice as soon as he entered the vestibule and groaned as he lifted the latch of the hall and went inside.

  Richard was sitting in John's chair near the hearth, drinking their best wine from one of the glass goblets that were brought out only on special occasions. Matilda, in her best brocade kirtle, sat opposite and scowled at her husband as he entered.

  'You're late, John. I've had to tell Mary to wait before serving the food.'

  'Well, I'm here now. Some of us have duties to attend to,' he retorted, with a meaningful nod at her brother.

  He went to a side table and poured himself some wine, pointedly using a pottery cup instead of one of the heavy glasses he had bought at considerable cost in France some years earlier. 'Matilda tells me you had something to discuss with me, Richard,' he grunted.

  'Let that rest until we have eaten,' commanded his wife, as Mary came in with a wooden tray bearing a boiled duck. They came to the table and began eating, today using pewter plates instead of the usual bread trenchers. Bowls of cabbage, onions and beans were brought in from the kitchen shed, together with a large jug of a different wine. The courteous Richard cut slices from the plump bird with his knife and placed them on his sister's platter before serving himself, leaving John to fend for himself.

  As de Wolfe had recently ruined de Revelle's political ambitions and come within a whisker of having him arrested and possibly hanged, it was hardly surprising that the atmosphere was strained. However, the former sheriff was beholden to John several times over, and he could not afford to be too openly antagonistic to the coroner, especially as de Wolfe still had enough evidence to have him indicted for treason over Richard's support for the rebellious Prince John.

  They began eating in a state of muted truce, the dapper Richard making some small talk, largely with his sister, leaving John to chew undisturbed and to regard their visitor from under his black eyebrows. He saw a slight man of average height, with wavy brown hair and a small pointed beard which made his face look triangular. Like his sister, Richard had rather small brown eyes, which darted restlessly around, giving him a shifty appearance that matched what John knew of his nature. But what most drew the attention was the splendour of his dress, for though he was not as showy as John's trading partner, Hugh de Relaga, de Revelle had expensive tastes in costume. He wore a calf-length tunic of the best green linen, heavily embroidered around the neck and hem with gold thread, and, clinching his waist, a wide belt of elaborately tooled leather. Over these he wore an open surcoat of fine yellow wool, while on a hook behind the screens hung a further defence against the chill of winter, a heavy, fur-lined mantle of blue cloth. As they ate, Richard regaled his sister with details of the house he had just bought in the city.

  'In an excellent district, of course,' he brayed. Just inside the North Gate, with a hall, a solar and two extra rooms.'

  'Starting another school, are you?' observed John with heavy sarcasm. Impervious to the jibe, de Revelle explained that he needed somewhere to stay in the city when he was attending to his various business interests in Exeter, his manors at Tiverton and Revelstoke being far away at opposite ends of Devon. The fact that he no longer had quarters in Rougemont because he had been ejected in disgrace, was carefully avoided.

  When they had eaten a dessert of stewed figs imported from Provence and sampled Mary's bread and cheese, they returned to the wine and the problem that Richard had brought.

  'It's this damned corpse found in my new school in the lower town,' he began in his rather effeminate, high-pitched voice. 'I gather that you are dealing with the matter, John?'

  'I'm the only coroner in Exeter, so I have little choice,' growled de Wolfe.

  'Then I trust that you will settle the case with the utmost speed and discretion. Such unwelcome publicity can do nothing but harm to my venture there.'

  'I'll do what I have to do, Richard. No more nor no less than my duty.'

  Brother and sister exchanged looks loaded with exasperation at this unhelpful attitude, but John was damned i
f he was going to do any special favours for this rogue who was only interested in his own profit.

  'I swear this corpse was put there deliberately to embarrass me and spoil my efforts to bring some more culture to this city,' whined Richard. 'Both potential students and prominent families who are considering enrolling their sons can only be discouraged by such goings-on.'

  'Are you accusing the masters of your rival schools as the culprits?' asked John mischievously. 'Maybe this famous poet Joseph Iscanus slew the fellow and dragged him up into your loft?'

  'Don't be so ridiculous, husband. Listen to what my brother is telling you,' snapped Matilda. 'This death is an embarrassment to Richard and can only do a disservice to both him and the progress of education in this city,' she added pompously.

  'Iscanus is a good teacher,' said Richard condescendingly. 'I only hope that our new establishment can match his excellence, given time. If we can all urge more students to enrol, then Exeter could come to rival Oxford.'

  Remembering the main reason for his visit, he changed the subject. 'Have you made no progress at all in clearing up the death of this damned intruder into my school?' he demanded.

  De Wolfe grunted into his wine cup, his usual response to being nagged. 'We don't even know who the fellow was, yet. Have you any idea how he came to be in your property?'

  'He must have been hidden there to cause us trouble,' claimed de Revelle.

  'But I'm told you acquired the place only at Michaelmas,' countered John.

  Richard shook his head stubbornly. 'I'll wager he wasn't there when we took over. Depend on it, he was dumped there deliberately.'

  The coroner shrugged. 'And who would want to have done a thing like that, for God's sake?'

  'I know one, for a start,' replied Richard, darkly. 'The man who has been plaguing me for many months, damn him.'

  John waited for an explanation. His brother-in-law had a legion of enemies and he wondered which one would be chosen this time.

  'That thrice-cursed outlaw from Cornwall, I'll wager he's behind this,' snarled Richard. 'That bloody Arundell fellow.'

  John pricked up his ears. 'Arundell? Which one is that? There were several of that name out in Palestine when I was there.'

  'They're scattered all over the West Country like a swarm of flies,' grumbled de Revelle. 'William of Normandy should never have given them so much land after Hastings, they became a plague on the country.'

  'Which one, I said?' snapped John impatiently. If a fellow Crusader was involved, he wanted to know about it.

  'Nicholas, who used to hold Hempston Arundell years ago, though he should have stayed with the rest of the barbarians in Cornwall.'

  De Wolfe shook his head. 'I don't know of a Nicholas from my time in the Holy Land. But Hempston is near Totnes, isn't it?'

  De Revelle nodded his elegant head. 'A dismal little manor next to Henry Pomeroy's lands.' He seemed to John to become suddenly evasive.

  'So why should he want to harm you? What have you done to him?' he demanded.

  Richard waved a be-ringed hand dismissively. 'It's a long story, John. Suffice it to say that he has threatened me a number of times and tried to bring an action against me in the courts. But of course, an outlaw has no legal existence, so he has no chance of that, unless he wants to lose his head.'

  He refused to enlarge upon the issue and John guessed that he had swindled this Arundell out of something. He was not sufficiently interested to press his brother-in-law further, so Richard repeated his earlier request.

  'I trust you, and that senile sheriff we have now, will clear up this mystery with the utmost speed. I can expect little from de Furnellis, but I hope that you will do all you can to settle the matter before it becomes the talk of Devon.'

  John stood up, his bench grating on the flagstones. 'I'll do what I can, as always. But you have no idea at all who this dead man might be?' When Richard shook his head, de Wolfe persisted. 'You are always parading about the county between your manors, have you heard of anyone going missing this past half-year?'

  John, I have better things to occupy me than listening to gossip, other than that concerning the gentry of this county.' De Revelle was an even bigger snob than his sister.

  'This man was no beggar or serf, he wore good clothing, so he need not have been beneath your notice,' said John, sarcastically.

  His brother-in-law had the grace to look a little abashed. 'I still have no notion of who he might have been. Perhaps you can stir your sheriff into enquiring amongst the tithings and the serjeants of the Hundreds, to see if anyone has gone missing?'

  De Wolfe began backing towards the door. 'That is being done, but somehow I suspect he is a townsman rather than a villager.'

  Matilda glared at his retreating figure. 'Are you leaving so early, husband? Can you not stay to entertain our guest longer?'

  Reaching the screens, he raised his hand in a perfunctory farewell. 'I have urgent business at the castle. This morning's business at the gallows has put me behind, I must go.'

  Before more protests could be made, he marched out of the door, grabbed his boots and cloak from the vestibule, and made a hurried getaway into the street.

  The chapter house of Exeter cathedral was a timber structure built just outside the massive south tower. It was an old building, now indisputably inadequate for housing both the chamber on the ground floor where the canons daily debated their business, as well as the scriptorium and archives on the upper level. The bishop had promised to donate part of the nearby palace garden for a new building in stone, but so far it was still no more than a drawing on a sheet of parchment.

  It was to the scriptorium that Thomas made his way that afternoon, climbing the wooden stairs in the corner of the bare chapter house with joy in his heart. A born academic, he loved both the Church and its historical accoutrements, so to him the steps up to this dusty library were like the first flight of a stairway to heaven. After two years in the wilderness following his unfrocking, to be legitimately returned to the fold and also to have the run of the books and manuscripts in the archives was paradise on earth. When recently he had been restored in Winchester to the priesthood, one of the conditions was that he should be found some ecclesiastical employment, so his uncle John de Alençon, Archdeacon of Exeter, had arranged some part-time jobs for him. As well as teaching young choristers to read and write, Thomas was to begin cataloguing the cathedral archives, which over the years had declined into a disorganised jumble of manuscripts. This was a delight to Thomas, for he could spend as much time as he liked reading them, as well as the several score valuable books which were chained around the walls.

  Today, however, he had an added motive in spending a few hours in the chapter house, as he wanted to discover if anyone there had any idea of the identity of their most recent corpse. There were usually a few people in the scriptorium, either laboriously copying old papers or researching some obscure point of canon law. Exeter was one of the nine secular cathedrals in England, staffed by canons and their minions, so there were no monks there, only various grades of cleric like Thomas himself. These were at least as prone to gossip as the butcher or baker, and Thomas had no difficulty in getting them talking, albeit in low tones so as not to disturb the couple of old prebendaries who were dozing at their desks.

  Adept at worming out information without giving rise to suspicion, the little clerk spent the whole afternoon interrogating a pair of vicars, three parish priests and an old canon who spent most of his time in the scriptorium because of the pleasant warmth given off by the stone chimney that came up from the hearth in the chamber beneath. Thomas had hoped that one of them might have had parishioners who had vanished or perhaps had known of a missing member of the congregation from one of the twenty-seven churches in the city. In addition, though the confessional was sacrosanct, priests were known when amongst themselves to let drop anonymous information, but perhaps this was too much to expect. In the event, his afternoon was wasted, as absolutely nothing turned u
p that might shed any light on the identity of the unknown corpse. John could only hope that Gwyn would have better fortune than Thomas de Peyne.

  In fact, his officer's attempts at gaining information were not only more successful, but much more exciting than the clerk's placid hours in the cathedral scriptorium. The big Cornishman had spent the afternoon and early part of the evening making a tour of Exeter's taverns. Having at least one large jar of ale in each, by twilight a lesser man would have sunk unconscious into the gutter, but Gwyn's iron head and large bladder could deal with prodigious quantities of drink without much effect upon him. But a couple of hours after nightfall, he had still learned nothing of any use and he decided to make his way in the icy moonlight back down to the Bush to report his failure to his master. On his way down Smythen Street, where their problem had begun, he resolved to make one last call and carried on down towards Stepcote Hill, a lane leading down towards the West Gate and so steep that it was terraced to offer safe footing. At its top was the most disreputable alehouse in the city, the Saracen. A haunt of thieves, whores and assorted villains, the tavern was run by Willem the Fleming, an obese giant almost as big as Gwyn, who ruled his disorderly house by sheer physical force. Gwyn rarely went there except when there was an affray or a murder, not only because he represented unwelcome law and order, but also because the ale was so foul compared with Nesta's brew.

  Tonight he ducked under the low lintel of the front door, above which was painted a crude representation of a Moorish head, complete with turban. Inside, the taproom was foul with smoke from the central firepit, its odour mixed with the stench of unwashed bodies, spilt ale and the miasma rising from month-old rushes rotting on the floor. A pair of stray dogs competed with rats in searching for old food scraps dropped beneath the rickety tables, at which drunken patrons sat with a few raucous whores. The rest of the room was filled with rough-looking men who stood drinking, shouting and arguing, when they were not pinching the bottoms and bosoms of the three slatterns who pushed through the crowd bearing large jugs to refill empty pots.