Crowner's Quest

by Bernard Knight

  In the bare hall of the dead prebendary’s dwelling, the coroner was waiting, sitting on a bench at one side of the oak refectory table. He motioned Langton to stand opposite him and launched straight into his interrogation, his long dark face glowering at the young vicar. ‘What were you doing in the Saracen tavern last night, associating with a hired adventurer and a painted whore?’ he demanded. Both descriptions of Eric’s companions were a little exaggerated, but the coroner believed in the power of over-statement when confronting a witness.

  Langton was normally pallid, but now the remaining blood drained from his scarred cheeks. Between his dark hair and the black cloak he had thrown over his church robes, his pinched face was ashen and his lips quivered, but no words emerged. Eventually, though, after de Wolfe had harshly repeated his questions, the story came out, reluctantly and hesitantly.

  ‘Canon Roger sent me with a message to Giles Fulford,’ he said, in a low voice, his eyes avoiding John’s. ‘It was urgent, so I had to seek him out in one of the taverns he often frequented.’

  ‘One that you also often frequented,’ snapped the coroner. ‘You went upstairs with a drab, so you must be well acquainted with the Saracen.’

  The vicar’s white face suddenly flushed scarlet. ‘I have a – a friend I see there sometimes, yes.’

  De Wolfe gestured impatiently, his black brows lowered scornfully. ‘I don’t give a damn about your morals, priest, though your archdeacon and bishop might have a word or two to say to you after this. I want to know what was going on between your master and this man Fulford.’

  The wretched cleric, staring ruin in the face, twisted in anguish. ‘I know little of the reasons, Crowner, I swear. Some weeks ago, the canon took me aside and asked me if I knew any bold man who might help him in a private venture that would need strength and determination. I took it that he meant someone who would act for him in some enterprise unfit for a man of the church.’ He looked down at his pointed shoes. ‘Canon Roger knows that I have some weaknesses – he is a tolerant man and has overlooked my lapses in the past.’

  The coroner could not be bothered to explore Langton’s ‘weaknesses’; he was not concerned with this erring priest, but with what lay behind his story. ‘So what followed?’ he demanded.

  ‘I had this friend in the town – a woman I knew. I asked her if she knew any persons who could aid Canon Roger. She took me one night to meet Rosamunde of Rye.’

  ‘A harlot’s coven!’ observed John sarcastically.

  ‘In turn, she brought Giles Fulford, and I arranged for him to meet my master.’

  De Wolfe grunted at this sanitised version of a vicar’s nocturnal activities in the less savoury streets of Exeter. ‘Where did they have this meeting and what was discussed?’

  ‘Giles came to the cathedral one day, after the morning services. They talked in the nave after everyone had left. It seemed a safe and private place. I have no knowledge of what they discussed. I was told to keep well clear of the meeting.’

  ‘Did your canon meet him on other occasions? And was anyone else involved?’ grated the coroner.

  Langton shook his head energetically. ‘I cannot tell – I heard nothing more of the matter at that time.’

  ‘What about your doxy in the town? Surely, between your bouts of carnal lust, you discussed this unusual happening,’ asked John cynically.

  ‘Yes, I asked her about it – naturally I was curious. But the girl said that Rosamunde had told her to mind her own business or it would be the worse for her.’

  There was a ring of truth about this that de Wolfe accepted. ‘So what about this latest meeting last night?’

  The vicar looked even more furtive and downcast than before. ‘The canon took me aside yesterday, after the inquest you held. He told me to seek out Fulford at once, to tell him that everything was over between them, whatever that meant. He said that he did not want to see him or hear from him again as all their plans had been confounded by the death of Canon de Hane.’

  ‘And you claim to know nothing more about the matter than this?’ snapped the coroner. ‘I find that hard to believe!’

  Eric’s face was a picture of abject misery. ‘It is the truth, Crowner. I swear by God and the Virgin and every saint in the calendar! I was but a messenger in this, I have no idea what lies behind it. You must ask the canon himself. After this I am finished. I care not what happens to me now.’

  This struck a sympathetic chord with Thomas, himself an unfrocked priest, and he laid a comforting hand upon the vicar’s arm. But the coroner was in no comforting mood: though he believed Langton’s story, he was now grimly determined to discover the whole truth – and Langton had just suggested the obvious way.

  ‘Indeed, Canon de Limesi will need to answer a few questions – and that very soon! As for you, just get out of my sight. You should be glad that you have the benefit of clergy or you’d soon be languishing in a cell in Rougemont. But, no doubt, your Archdeacon and the Bishop will have a few scores to settle with you in the near future.’

  The wretched vicar slunk away and the coroner turned to his clerk. ‘What do we make of that, Thomas?’ he asked, in a rare show of familiarity with his underling.

  The little man was confused: he was overjoyed that his master had actually asked his opinion about something, an unusual honour indeed, but he was also grieved that a colleague in his own beloved Church, of which he still felt an integral part, in spite of his own scandal, should have been caught out wenching and frequenting taverns. He hedged. ‘We don’t yet know that Canon de Hane’s death has anything at all to do with Roger de Limesi. Odd though this story is, it may have some innocent explanation.’

  De Wolfe made a rude noise with his lips. ‘For God’s sake, Thomas, you must be able to see the facts clearer than that, even with your swivel eye! De Limesi hires a thug and then, on the day of the murder of a colleague who sits with him in the archives every day, makes a panic call to the said thug to call off whatever was being plotted!’

  Put like that, even Doubting Thomas had to admit that de Limesi had a great deal to explain.

  ‘As soon as those priests come out from their endless singing and chanting this morning, I want Roger de Limesi brought here for me to question. Get yourself over to the cathedral steps and catch him before he vanishes to fill his stomach.’

  ‘What if he refuses me? I am nothing compared to the rank of a prebendary in this cathedral.’

  ‘Thomas, stop thinking of yourself as a derelict priest. You are my servant, a deputy of a royal law officer. You will insist that he comes. If he refuses, go to your uncle the Archdeacon and tell him that I say it is of the utmost urgency that de Limesi comes to see me. And tell John de Alencon that he might wish to be present when I interrogate his fellow prebendary to see that there is no impropriety.’

  Reluctantly the clerk went off on his unwelcome errand and waited at the west front of the huge church until the morning devotions were over. These religious services, though open to anyone who was content to stand at a distance in the nave, were really for the benefit of the cathedral staff in their endless glorification of God rather than for public worship, which was the function of the seventeen parish churches in the small city. Thus there was virtually no exodus of a congregation through the doors, the services having been confined to the canons, vicars, secondaries and choristers assembled in the choir just below the chancel.

  But now the saga took a fresh and unexpected turn, as the first person to emerge was a young secondary. He hurried across the steps towards de Peyne, whom he recognised as the coroner’s clerk, lodging in the next house. ‘Well met, Thomas! I’ve just been sent to find your master. The Archdeacon wishes to speak most urgently with the Crowner. He wants him to come to the Chapter House without delay.’

  ‘But I’ve been sent here to command Roger de Limesi to come to the coroner,’ countered the clerk.

  ‘I think it’s in connection with that particular canon that the meeting’s required,’ replie
d the young priest, tapping the side of his nose as a hint that something serious was going on.

  Unsure of what to do now, Thomas hurried, as fast as his lame leg would allow, back to John de Wolfe. He found that Gwyn of Polruan had also just returned from his visit to the Saracen.

  A few minutes later, the three arrived at the Chapter House on the south side of the cathedral, where they found John de Alencon sitting on one of the benches, with Jordan de Brent and Roger de Limesi on each side of him. De Limesi sat some feet away from the Archdeacon, looking very subdued indeed.

  The benches were arranged in two rows on three sides of the bare room. A lectern for reading chapters from the scriptures took up part of the fourth side, where there was also a tall-backed chair for the Bishop, though he rarely attended.

  The coroner stood in the centre of the room and stared at the three priests. ‘I was just about to seek out Canon Roger to ask him some very direct questions,’ he said ominously, in his bass voice.

  John de Alencon motioned de Wolfe to sit down and, with his assistants on each side of him, he dropped on to a front bench exactly opposite the coroner’s party. ‘This is a private and delicate matter, John,’ said the Archdeacon gently, his grey eyes flicking meaningfully to the men on either side of the coroner.

  ‘It is also a matter of royal jurisdiction, as granted to us by your bishop,’ responded the coroner. ‘It may be such a serious matter that even the protection of the Church towards its members may not be sufficient.’ Guessing that the Archdeacon was reluctant to have the discussion aired before two servants, he said, ‘Sooner or later my clerk will have to write down all that transpires, so he needs a complete grasp of what is being said. And my officer is always at my side. He is as much a part of me as my arm or leg.’

  Both his assistants glowed internally at this expression of his trust in them, and their silent devotion to their master became deeper than ever.

  John de Alencon nodded his acceptance, and began his explanation. ‘Roger de Limesi has come to me with a strange and disturbing story. He wished to make a confession in the religious sense, to obtain my absolution, as I am his regular confessor. But, in the circumstances, I had to refuse him, as the inviolability of the confessional would make it impossible to divulge what he wished to say.’

  There was a silence in the room that had a breathless, suspended quality, as the coroner’s team waited for what was to be revealed.

  ‘I have therefore advised him to tell this story to you, Crowner, as the matter is one of grave secular importance. And, as you said, we know that Bishop Henry has devolved the rights of the cathedral to you in such circumstances.’ The thin yet serene face turned towards the discomfited de Limesi. ‘Your confession in religious terms will be heard later, but that is none of the business of John de Wolfe. Unburden yourself now, Roger, and say what you must say.’

  The canon, a black cloak over the alb and chasuble which he wore during the morning services, slowly raised his drooping head. ‘My shame is almost more than I can bear, though my motives were not bad, Crowner. That they may have contributed to the death of my brother canon is the bitter part, from which I fear my immortal soul is in danger.’

  ‘We will deal with your immortal soul later, Roger,’ said the Archdeacon, with the merest trace of irony in his mellow voice. ‘For now, let’s have your story.’

  De Limesi gave a great sigh and plunged into his narrative. ‘It began here, upstairs in the library. I became intrigued by Robert de Hane’s increasing activity and enthusiasm during the past month or so. I’ve known him for years, poor soul, and I was surprised by this sudden burst of energy, the long hours he spent here and the mysterious trips he began making into the countryside.’

  Jordan de Brent’s deep voice broke in. ‘This is just what I described before. De Limesi is right, our late brother became a changed man.’

  ‘One day I asked him what he was working on,’ continued de Limesi. ‘He was evasive and this made me all the more curious. So, God forgive me for my deceit, I took the opportunity of his absence at prime one day, when my vicar was performing my own duties, to go through the parchments on his desk. It was clear that he was searching old records from the early churches in Devon. Eventually I came across a double sheet of ancient vellum that he had hidden under a sheaf of palimpsests, away from the bulk of the other documents.’ He paused to press his brow, as if a ferocious headache had struck him. ‘It was in poor Latin, written in an ugly hand by a village priest, a Saxon. From the context, he must have written this in early ten sixty-nine, a couple of years after we Normans first spread into these parts.’

  The coroner spoke for the first time. ‘What village was this?’

  ‘It was Dunsford, a small hamlet some eight miles west of Exeter.’

  Thomas whispered excitedly, into his master’s ear, ‘One of the holdings of Saewulf, whose name bore the inked cross I told you about!’

  Almost immediately, his comment was confirmed by de Limesi. ‘This priest was setting down something that had been confided to him by his Saxon lord, Saewulf, who held much land and property in Devon before the Conquest. Saewulf was afraid – quite rightly, as it turned out – that his lands would be confiscated and his property taken from him when our armies came into Devon. There was nothing he could do about his land, but he was determined to try to save at least some of his wealth. Shortly before the arrival of our conquerors from Wessex, he hid a large quantity of gold and silver, in the form of coin and ornaments, in the vicinity of Dunsford, hoping to retrieve it if a Saxon rebellion was successful.’

  The Archdeacon nodded sagely. ‘There were such rebellions, as we know. In ’sixty-eight, King William had to put this city under siege for eighteen days until the locals came to their senses.’

  Thomas could not resist airing his historical knowledge. ‘And later that year, the three bastard sons of King Harold tried to seize Bristol – then came into Somerset and defeated the Norman militia there.’

  The coroner was more interested in treasure than history. ‘So what of this gold and silver?’ he demanded.

  ‘It seems that Saewulf had great trust in this local priest and confided in him the location of this hoard, in case he was killed or captured in the fighting. The priest, whose name is not recorded, was charged with trying to restore the treasure to Saewulf’s family or, failing that, to give it to the Church.’

  There was a silence, in which the brains of those present could almost be heard weighing up the relative rights of the ecclesiastical versus the secular authorities to a great pile of gold and silver.

  ‘So what did you do next?’ de Wolfe grated.

  ‘I read all the manuscript, which contained other topics about the church and parish which were not relevant. I knew now what had been exercising the mind of Robert de Hane to make him so excited.’

  ‘And what of the location of this treasure? Did the parchment explain that?’ asked the Archdeacon. He almost succeeded in keeping the excitement from his voice.

  ‘No, there was nothing. The text suggested that the directions to find the hoard were on another document. I read it, then placed it back carefully where I had found it.’

  ‘Then what did you do?’ rumbled de Wolfe.

  ‘I was intrigued, naturally. Buried treasure fascinates us all, surely. I wanted to know more, but I could hardly ask Robert, who had already shown himself to be very secretive about it.’

  ‘What did you think about the prospect of recovering a valuable hoard of precious metal?’ asked the Archdeacon.

  ‘I thought it would be a great honour to be able to hand such a gift over to the Church,’ replied de Limesi virtuously. ‘For that was what Saewulf had commanded his priest to do, if it could not be returned to his family.’

  ‘So you secretly recruited a mercenary to recover it for you?’ said the coroner sarcastically. ‘Why not go to the Archdeacon or even the Bishop and enlist the powerful aid of the Church?’

  The canon flushed, either fr
om shame or anger, de Wolfe was not sure which. ‘That was my sin. I wanted to have the praise of the chapter and the Bishop. It was arrogance and pride, driving me to overtake poor Robert de Hane in finding the treasure. But it was the sin of vanity, not of my own greed.’

  John held his tongue, but thought that anyone who believed that was either a saint or a fool.

  ‘So why go to a man of fortune, if you didn’t know where the hoard was hidden?’ asked John de Alencon.

  ‘I did that after I had found such directions,’ replied the canon. ‘The day after reading the Saewulf story, I arranged to be in the archives when de Hane was absent at devotions. I searched high and low, but found nothing. Later that day, when he had returned to the library, I went to his house on some pretext and hunted around there – we canons often visit each other’s dwellings and the servants are used to other clergy being in and out – but again there was nothing. The hiding-places in his Spartan dwelling were few indeed.’

  ‘Get to the point, man!’ snapped the coroner, wearying of this slow tale.

  ‘I found it eventually, carefully hidden in his high desk in the archives. He had sewn two old parchments together at three edges, forming a pocket. It was a single half-page of old vellum, with obvious directions to the spot where Saewulf had secreted his wealth. I copied this on to a new page, then returned the original to its hiding-place.’

  ‘Where is that copy now?’

  ‘I destroyed it – and the original has vanished too, for I looked yesterday. De Hane must have taken it away before his death.’

  At this news there was a collective sigh.

  ‘You had better explain,’ said de Wolfe grimly.

  De Limesi moved uneasily on his bench. ‘The directions were to a certain spot just outside the churchyard at Dunsford. No doubt this was where de Hane went when he took those rides on his pony, to survey the scene. I went there myself, during the first days of this month. The directions were clear, but when I looked over the hedge of the churchyard, so many paces from the church and so many from one of the ancient yews, many small trees and bushes had grown over the spot. I realised that Robert could not have recovered it alone and I soon saw that it was also beyond my capabilities. I needed help to dig at that place and that is why I asked my vicar to find me a man who would do the task.’