Crowner Royal (Crowner John Mysteries)

by Bernard Knight

  He felt relief, tempered by a little jealousy, that the younger and undoubtedly handsome under-marshal had now taken the problem off his hands. Ranulf had no wife, as he had once told him that she had died, so Ranulf had no impediment to taking Hawise either as a mistress or a wife, if the complication of having Renaud de Seigneur as husband could be overcome.

  Anyway, he thought, it was no business of his and he felt as if a weight had been lifted from his mind, no longer having to avoid the woman or make stern refusals of her future favours.

  As soon as Renaud had finished his meal – not that he had eaten much – he rose abruptly and almost dragged his wife away, murmuring a bare goodnight. Accompanied by her maid, Hawise followed reluctantly, giving Ranulf a soulful glance and a covert flutter of her fingers as she trailed after Renaud towards the doors.

  While de Montfort prattled on to Guy de Bretteville on his other side, John prodded Ranulf gently in the ribs with his elbow and leaned over to speak to him in a low voice.

  ‘Well done, sir knight! I see how the land lies between you and the fair Hawise,’ he murmured. ‘But watch your step, the husband looked none too pleased, I doubt he’s ignorant of what’s going on.’

  Ranulf gave a sheepish grin, but John sensed that he was both excited and agitated beneath his efforts to keep a calm exterior. De Wolfe hoped that Hawise had restrained herself from boasting to the under-marshal about Marlborough. She wouldn’t disillusion the younger man by flaunting her promiscuity, he thought.

  He let the subject lie and they talked of other things, including the return journey through Oxford and the fortitude of the old queen and William Marshal on such a long and gruelling ride.

  John had hoped for a walk along the riverbank with Ranulf, to catch up on the events of the return from Gloucester and to tell him more details of his own recent brush with death. But the younger knight seemed abstracted and excused himself straight after the supper, taking Aubrey away in a rather abrupt fashion. John wondered if Hawise had in fact told him of her previous passionate episode with him and this had made Ranulf embarrassed. John shrugged it off, he had more pressing matters to think of, mainly how he was to tell Hubert Walter that the investigation had stalled and that he wanted to resign as coroner.

  For some exercise to settle the meal in his stomach, he walked into the abbey precinct and across Broad Sanctuary to come out in Thieving Lane. He loped back towards the main gate of the palace and the Deacon tavern. This route took him past the Crown alehouse, a low-class drinking den of which the man who had assaulted John had been a patron. On impulse, he turned into the inn and pushed his way past the drinkers standing almost shoulder-to-shoulder in the low-ceilinged taproom.

  The place reeked of sweat, spilt ale and urine – both human and animal. The floor rushes looked as if they had not been changed since before the Conquest and several cats and dogs scratched through the litter for mice, rats and scraps of fallen food. Compared with this hovel, the Deacon was as much a palace as the one across the road.

  De Wolfe pushed to the back of the room, where several casks were propped up on wedges and racks. A landlord almost as big as Gwyn stood truculently in front of the kegs, his hands on his hips. He had a large cudgel propped against a barrel, ready to deal with the frequent fights that broke out. The man wore a stained leather apron over his bare chest, his lower half encased in serge breeches. He glared at de Wolfe, who was obviously not one of his usual class of customers.

  Thinking it politic to act like one, he asked for a quart of ale and gave a quarter-segment of a penny in exchange. Rather cautiously, he took a sip and to his surprise found it of better quality than that on offer in any of the other Westminster taverns. He complimented the landlord on the taste and received a grunt in reply, but persisted in his quest. This was no place to flash his royal warrant, especially without its impressive seal.

  ‘I met a man recently who recommended your brew,’ he lied. ‘A big fellow, with a curious brown mole on his cheek.’

  The publican stared at him suspiciously.

  ‘Then you’ll not meet him again, for I hear he’s dead. Fell down and broke his neck.’

  Obviously the instant news network of Westminster was not confined to the upper echelons of the palace and abbey.

  ‘Indeed, that’s a pity,’ said John insincerely. ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Jordan the ratcatcher, that’s who he was.’ The dead man had obviously not plied his trade in this alehouse, by the state of the place, but that was no concern of John’s.

  ‘And you are the coroner, sir – so why are you asking these questions?’ growled the landlord suspiciously. It was hardly surprising that he had been recognised, as de Wolfe was a striking figure, stalking around in black or grey, well known to most as the king’s new coroner. Deprived of anonymity, he thought he might as well be frank.

  ‘This Jordan tried to kill me, probably more than once,’ he growled. ‘Is it known that he took on such tasks, as well as killing vermin?’

  The landlord, summing up the coroner’s demeanour and the size of the sword he carried, forbore to say that he thought that royal officials were just another class of vermin.

  ‘Jordan was a violent man, sir. Many a time I’ve had to deal with his brawling in here.’ He looked down at the heavy club propped against a barrel. ‘But I wouldn’t know about any other troubles he might have got into.’

  ‘You never saw him in the company of clergymen, I suppose.’

  John was thinking of the possibility that Canon Simon might have had some nefarious dealings with the man, though as he was already dead at the time of the two attacks on John, he could not have been involved in those. But perhaps the silencing of the ironmaster might have been ordered by him or his partner, the mysterious man in the city tavern.

  The innkeeper gave a derisive laugh. ‘Jordan? I doubt he’s been to Mass or confession since he was a lad. And the clergy, for all their sins and corruption, never come into the Crown, it’s way too rough for them.’

  John looked around the room at the suspicious stares that the patrons were directing at him. He knew he would never get any information from them, even if some knew of Jordan’s exploits. He decided to send Gwyn to see if he could pick up any useful information, as alehouses were his forte, just as abbey dorters and refectories were happy hunting-grounds for Thomas de Peyne.

  Sinking the rest of his quart, which he admitted he enjoyed very much, John went out into the far fresher air of the street and walked home to his bed, frustrated again by a failure to make any progress.

  Next day, de Wolfe awoke with a sense of foreboding, for this might well be the day he would be called to account before Hubert Walter. If no summons came that morning, he would have to take the bull by the horns and seek an audience, confessing that he had failed and that he wished to resign and slink home to Devon.

  But fate had other ideas for that day. Soon after the eighth hour, Thomas arrived in the coroner’s chamber from attending Prime in the abbey. They had just begun their second breakfast of bread, cheese and cider provided as usual by the ever-ravenous Gwyn, even though he and his master had had Osanna’s gruel and boiled eggs soon after dawn.

  An imperious rap on the door heralded an unusual visitor, in the shape of Martin Stanford, the Deputy Marshal, who had never before sought out the coroner.

  The three residents rose to their feet, for Stanford was a knight of greater seniority than even de Wolfe. He was one of the deputies to William Marshal himself, though to be fair, he never gave himself any great airs. A stocky man in his late fifties, he had a short neck and a red face, his brown hair cropped to a mat on top of his head in the old Norman style. He looked agitated and began speaking without any preamble.

  ‘De Wolfe, you supped in the Lesser Hall last evening, I understand? Were two of my under-marshals there with you?’

  John waved an invitation for Martin to be seated, where Thomas had hastily vacated the bench, but the marshal ignored this and wait
ed impatiently for an answer to his strange question.

  ‘Yes, they usually eat there. Ranulf of Abingdon and William Aubrey kept me company, as they often do. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because they’ve both damned well disappeared!’ snapped Stanford. ‘Of all times, when I need every man in the Marshalsea to start preparing for Queen Eleanor’s departure to Portsmouth tomorrow.’

  ‘They said nothing to me about going away when I spoke to them last night,’ replied John. ‘Is there no sign of them in their quarters?’

  Stanford strode to the open window and slapped the sill angrily with his riding gloves. ‘There’s nothing left there – they’ve taken their personal belongings and vanished! It seems that they left before dawn, for only a stable boy saw them both saddle up and ride away. Are you sure they said nothing about leaving?’

  John shook his head. ‘Not a word! I must say that Ranulf seemed somewhat distant, compared to his usual talkative self, but there was no mention of leaving Westminster.’

  Martin Stanford’s rather small eyes stared suspiciously at the coroner. ‘What d’you mean, he was somewhat distant?’ he demanded.

  De Wolfe felt trapped, as he had no wish to start gossip that might prove unfounded. ‘There might have been a reason, but it was a very personal one and as I’m only guessing, it would not be fair for me to repeat it.’

  Stanford glowered at him. ‘Damn it all, de Wolfe, this is a serious matter! If you know or even suspect something, I need to know. They were two of my most senior assistants.’

  John wavered until he decided that he had better divulge his suspicions about Ranulf and Hawise, but he was saved from this awkward position by yet another interruption. This time there was no knock on the door, it was flung back with a crash to admit Renaud de Seigneur, followed by a worried-looking Keeper of the Palace and an even more distraught Guest Master.

  ‘Sir John, do you know where my wife has gone to?’ he demanded in his shrill voice. For a moment, de Wolfe feared that he was going to denounce John as an adulterer and accuse him of adultery with his wife, but thankfully he had a different target for his anger.

  ‘You were in the supper hall last evening – did that bloody man Ranulf say anything to you about her?’ he almost shrieked.

  Before John could again deny being told anything by the under-marshal, Nathaniel de Levelondes laid a restraining hand on the Lord of Freteval’s shoulder and tried to placate him.

  ‘De Seigneur, I’m sure there must be some innocent explanation. Let us begin a search of the palace, for perhaps your lady has had some temporary loss of her mind and is wandering the passages and rooms.’

  Renaud twisted away and red-faced, began to shout again. ‘Loss of mind be damned! She has gone off with that devil of a horseman! Left her maid and almost all her clothes behind, just taken her jewels!’ he yelled.

  Stanford turned to stare at the coroner. ‘Is that what is behind this, de Wolfe? Is that what you were going to tell me?’

  John shrugged. ‘I know nothing definite, believe me. It’s just that at the table last night, I thought I detected – well, a situation between the Lady Hawise and Ranulf.’

  ‘By God’s bones, you certainly did!’ snapped Renaud. ‘I saw what was developing during the week it took to come back from Gloucester. I regret to say that my young wife has a weakness for handsome men.’ He did not look at de Wolfe when he said this and John was unsure whether to be relieved or insulted.

  ‘Then last night, she said she wanted to petition for an annulment, ridiculous though that may sound. She has had many a flutter with other men, but has never gone as far as that before.’

  It was now clear to the other men in the room what had happened before dawn broke that morning.

  De Levelondes summed up the situation. ‘So we must assume that the Lady Hawise has eloped with Ranulf of Abingdon. This must surely be some passing infatuation, Lord Renaud. She will come to her senses very quickly.’

  Stanford soon picked upon a flaw in his optimism. ‘For a knight in the king’s service to suddenly abandon his career is a major disaster for him, so if he has fled with a lady, then he must be very confident of her fidelity to him.’

  He stopped and slapped his head. ‘And why in the name of God has William Aubrey gone with them? She cannot be infatuated with them both!’

  This pronouncement suddenly ignited a train of thought in de Wolfe’s mind. Ranulf and William Aubrey, fleeing and abandoning their careers? What would they live on now? Was it possible? He began to think the unthinkable.

  ‘We need to hurry to the stables and speak to anyone else who knows these two men,’ he said decisively and without waiting for anyone’s reaction, he motioned to Gwyn and headed for the door.

  Within the hour, an urgent meeting had been convened in the Justiciar’s chambers. Hubert Walter presided, sitting grave-faced at his table, with William Marshal on his right hand. Nathaniel de Levelondes, the Keeper of the Palace, Martin Stanford, the Deputy Marshal, William fitz Hamon, one of the Barons of the Exchequer, John de Wolfe and Renaud de Seigneur were sitting or standing around the table. At the back of the room, between two palace guards and looking very apprehensive, were Hawise’s maid, a stable-boy and two of the esquires from the Marshalsea.

  The pressing nature of this most high-level congress was not because an under-marshal had run off with a young woman, even though she was the wife of a minor noble from Blois. It was because of what John de Wolfe had postulated back in his chamber – the coincidence that the two under-marshals who had escorted the treasure chest back from Winchester, were the same ones who had cut and run, without any apparent funds.

  All that was so far known about the emergency had already been given to Hubert Walter by the Deputy Marshal and by the coroner and now the Justiciar wanted to harden up the available evidence.

  ‘What do we know about this Ranulf that might be relevant?’ he demanded. Martin Stanford beckoned to the two esquires, who reluctantly came nearer.

  ‘These men knew him best, as they shared accommodation,’ he began. ‘For my part, I know that Ranulf of Abingdon was a most competent and reliable man when it came to his duties.’

  ‘Your tone suggests that there was another side to his character,’ snapped Hubert.

  ‘He was a young and energetic fellow,’ said Stanford. ‘He was fond of women, as many of us were at his age. But he was also keen to the point of obsession on gambling, both at dice, cards and in the wider sense, as well as chancing his luck at tournaments, where he was a skilful fighter.’

  He prodded one of the squires, a young man of about twenty, who looked frightened to death in this august company.

  ‘Elias, you knew him best, for you sometimes acted as his squire in the tournaments and melees. What can you tell us?’

  ‘He was certainly devoted to jousting, sir, mainly because of the prize money and the forfeits of horse and armour of those he defeated.’

  ‘Has he said anything of suddenly leaving the king’s employ?’

  Elias shook his blond head. ‘No, but he often boasted that one day he would take himself abroad and make his fortune going around the tournaments in Germany and Flanders. He said that the restrictions in England made it hardly worth the trouble of entering for the jousts.’

  John knew it was true that, though King Richard had relaxed the rules, his father Henry had been against knights killing themselves for money, so many went across the Channel for their sport.

  ‘What about this lady?’ demanded William Marshal. He almost said ‘this bloody woman’, but realised that her husband was present. ‘Did he say anything about her?’

  Elias reddened. ‘I was not with him on the progress to Gloucester and back, my lord. But since he has been back, he spoke of little else other than a new paramour, though he would not name her.’

  ‘But you must have known who it was!’ barked the Keeper.

  ‘Indeed, it was obvious that it was the Lady Hawise,’ admitted the squire.

>   ‘And you say you had no idea that he was going to vanish so precipitately like this?’ growled Hubert.

  ‘None at all, Your Grace! He has seemed excited these past few days, but I put that down to his latest romance. He has had quite a few of those; I knew the signs.’

  Renaud de Seigneur made a gargling noise at this exposure of the nature of his wife’s lover, but the Justiciar overrode him.

  ‘Have you any idea of where he might have gone? And what of the other man, this Aubrey?’

  ‘He gave no indication at all, sire! I cannot understand it, but Gilbert here knew William Aubrey better than I.’

  The other young man, a muscular red-headed fellow, was pulled forward by the Deputy Marshal.

  ‘Do you know anything that throws light on this unfortunate affair?’ he rasped.

  ‘William said nothing to me, though like Ranulf, he seemed very excited these past days. He, too, was a keen gambler and I know that both of them were deeply in debt during the past few months.’

  ‘How so?’ demanded de Wolfe, venturing a question for the first time, as money seemed at the root of this debacle.

  ‘He and Ranulf had been several times to the Jews for loans. They had lost heavily at a tournament in Wilton last winter and they had visited several moneylenders, paying off debts owed to one with borrowings from another – a recipe for disaster in the long run.’

  ‘Maybe they have run away to escape repaying these debts,’ suggested William fitz Hamon, a judge from the King’s Bench.

  Gilbert turned up his hands. ‘Perhaps, my lord. For some time, they were very anxious about their debts, but, recently, they no longer spoke of them and I got the impression that somehow they had come by substantial funds once again. I assumed one or the other had made a big winning at dice or cards, as they have not been jousting for some time.’

  William Marshal spoke again. ‘Have you any idea where they might have gone?’

  ‘As Elias has said, Ranulf was always talking about going to Flanders and Germany to make their fortunes in the big tournaments that are held there. I have no other suggestion, my lord.’