The Tinner's Corpse

by Bernard Knight

  ‘Not if I tell Hubert that I object,’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘This Fitz-Ivo is a drunken fool, he’ll be a disaster in the job.’

  John’s contempt for Fitz-Ivo, the lord of a small manor just outside Torrington, a village in the north-west of the county, sprang from a short acquaintance with him in the Irish campaign of ’82. In the endless battles and skirmishes between the Norman invaders and the Irish tribes, many knights had tried to carve out land and loot for themselves, including de Wolfe and Fitz-Ivo. The latter, mainly because of his gross eating and drinking, proved a hopeless fighter, sometimes too drunk to stay on his horse, and left for home within a few months of arriving in Wexford. He had inherited the manor of Frithelstock from his father and, with the help of an able steward, managed to survive, if not actually thrive. A widower with no surviving children, his needs were small but, like Matilda, Theobald had an illogical urge to be numbered amongst the county notables. Becoming a coroner was one route to this social elevation and he had been petitioning de Revelle since he had heard of the vacancies. De Wolfe suspected that Fitz-Ivo thought the job was a soft option, as indeed it might be if it was not pursued with the grim dedication that de Wolfe applied to his royal appointment.

  The sheriff gazed at his brother-in-law with a patronising, almost pitying expression. ‘Professional jealousy, John? D’you think you are the only one who can trot around the county and mouth a few words over a corpse at an inquest?’

  ‘There’s far more to it than that, Richard,’ began de Wolfe, ready to lecture the sheriff on the wide duties he had to perform.

  But Matilda, silent until now, beat him to it. She glared across the table at him. ‘That’s enough, John,’ she snapped. ‘The bare fact remains that this county, one of the biggest in England, is supposed to have three coroners. It has only one, who can’t possibly cover such a huge area any longer. You know your leg is not as good since you broke it, you’re not getting any younger, and I’m tired of you being away most of the time, then coming back to treat our home as if it was a common lodging-house.’ She threw a piece of cheese rind on to the table with an air of finality and sat back to glower at her husband.

  De Wolfe knew he was beaten – and, if the truth were known, he secretly agreed that the huge distances across Devonshire were becoming impossible to cope with. Last month, the trips he had made to the north had taken up days of hard riding, while other cases around Exeter had been neglected.

  ‘Very well, but when things go wrong, remember what I’ve said. I agree that at least one other crowner is needed – but Fitz-Ivo, for God’s sake! The man is an incompetent fool as well as a drunkard.’

  Eventually, while they finished the remaining wine, de Wolfe grudgingly accepted that Fitz-Ivo’s name would be put forward at Winchester. If Hubert Walter had no objections, then he would give the man the benefit of the doubt and let him tackle the cases in the northern part of Devon. ‘But if he makes a mess of it, I’ll ride to Winchester or London myself to see that he’s ejected,’ warned John. Though far from arrogant, de Wolfe hated the thought of a job being done less well than he could do it himself. ‘And where’s he going to get an officer and clerk to summon juries and record on his rolls?’ he barked, as a last rearguard objection, when de Revelle was swinging his elegant green cloak around his shoulders, ready to leave Martin’s Lane.

  ‘He says that his steward and bailiff will assist him,’ answered the sheriff. ‘The steward can read and write, certainly.’

  ‘He means that they will have to do all the work, I suppose,’ grunted the coroner. ‘And who will run the manor for him? The folk in Frithelstock will be starving by this time next year, as I doubt that Fitz-Ivo will shift himself to organise anything. Mark my words, this is a big mistake.’

  After the door had closed behind the sheriff, de Wolfe returned slowly to the hall and sat by the fire with a quart pot of ale to chase down the wine.

  He waited for the inevitable crowing of success from his wife, who had plumped herself down at the other side of the hearth.

  ‘I’m glad you saw sense, John. We thought it was best for you, especially since your leg hampers your movements.’

  ‘It does nothing of the sort, woman!’ he snarled, sensitive about his alleged disability. ‘I get a few twinges in the damned thing, but that’s to be expected. It’s no more than a couple of months since the bone was mended. Anyone would think I’m a cripple, the way you go on about it.’

  Matilda ignored his protests. She was still preening herself over her success in defeating his resistance to her plans. ‘Now you’ll be able to spend more time here. We can entertain a little, have some influential people in to dine now and again.’ She frowned as she recollected her last attempt at throwing a feast. On the eve of Christ Mass, a few months ago, her husband had been dragged out, not unwillingly, from the middle of her party to examine a cathedral canon, who was hanging by the neck in his own privy.

  At the awful prospect of being more frequently incarcerated with Matilda, de Wolfe threw down the rest of his ale and stood up. ‘The southern half of Devonshire is still a big place, wife, so don’t expect too much of me. I’m off now to Chagford on the moor, and I’ll not be back tonight.’

  As he marched out to the vestibule, he muttered under his breath, ‘And not tomorrow night either, if I can think of a good excuse.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  In which Crowner John rides to Chagford

  With a dry road and spring in the air it was a pleasant ride out of Exeter towards the moor, which was visible in the distance almost from the time they started from the West Gate. The trees were in leaf and the grass was greening up after the winter as the four horsemen trotted along the winding track westwards from the city. De Wolfe was ahead, sitting like a great black raven on the back of Odin, his grey destrier, a huge war-horse with hairy feet. Gwyn, wearing his usual boiled leather jerkin above worsted breeches, rode his solid brown mare alongside the bailiff’s roan gelding, and Thomas de Peyne bumped along behind on his pony, the peg of the side-saddle jutting somewhat obscenely between his thighs.

  The road wound through the deep wooded valleys typical of that part of Devon, broken at intervals by villages where strip-fields and common land had been laboriously hacked out of the forest. Although it was only about fifteen miles to Chagford, John called a halt just over half-way, at the top of a steep slope rising out of the Teign valley. ‘Let them graze the verge for ten minutes and get their wind back,’ he ordered, sliding from Odin’s back and looping the reins over a budding beech sapling. While the beasts chewed at the new grass, the ever-hungry Gwyn produced half a loaf and a leather bottle of cider from his saddle pouch.

  The travellers sat themselves in a row on a fallen tree-trunk, and as they tore at the bread and passed the bottle around, John took the opportunity to learn a little more about their destination. ‘I’ve not set foot in Chagford for many years, bailiff. It’s been a peaceful place, I presume?’

  Justin Green considered this, then nodded. ‘We get little trouble, true enough. A few drunks at the coinage and ales, but nothing serious. Chagford being one of the three Stannary towns makes a difference, I suppose, as the jurates who represent us at the Great Court are strict in upholding the Stannary law.’

  Gwyn wagged his bushy head in agreement. ‘It was the same in Cornwall. The tinners come down heavily on any of their own who step outside the rules. I should know – my own father was a tinner before he turned to fishing at Polruan.’

  This intrigued Thomas, who was inquisitive about everything. Though learned in anything that concerned the Church, politics or history, he knew little about the tin-workers of the west. ‘Are you saying they even have their own laws?’ he asked.

  The bailiff stared at him incredulously. ‘Of course they have, and even their own prison, a new one over in Lydford. They have their own parliament too, the Great Court that gathers on the high moor, at Crockern Tor. There’s a meeting this week, in fact.’

  Gwyn prodded T
homas with a massive elbow, almost knocking him off the log. ‘We have the same in Cornwall, you ignorant wretch, but ours meets in Truro – though in the old days the tinners from both Devon and Cornwall used to meet together on Hingston Down, just across the Tamar.’

  ‘But surely they must be subject to the laws of the land, like everyone else?’ Thomas persisted.

  ‘The Stannary laws cover everything except crimes against life, limb and damage to property,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘Where violence is concerned, the King’s law is paramount. The tinners have no immunity from the coroner, so don’t hope for any escape from your scribbling on my Rolls.’

  There was a short silence, as they chewed, then Thomas’s curiosity broke through again. ‘So what’s this Great Court you speak of, bailiff?’

  ‘A few times a year, the tinner representatives gather on Crockern Tor, in the middle of Dartmoor, to discuss all manner of business relating to their trade. The county is divided into three districts for the purpose, with Ashburton, Tavistock and Chagford as the Stannary town for each, where the tin is assayed and stamped for tax. Every district sends twenty-four jurates to the Great Court, where all rules and disputes about staking claims, water diversion, disposal of the waste, coinage and taxation are hammered out. And they deal with offenders too – the gaol at Lydford is never short of customers.’

  ‘Why should the tinners get this special treatment? Farmers and other traders don’t have it,’ objected the clerk.

  ‘Because the tin trade brings in a huge revenue to the Crown,’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘Along with wool, it’s the main export of England. King Richard has just sent two hundred and fifty thousand-weights from Plymouth to La Rochelle to pay his troops in France.’

  ‘To adulterate the silver coinage in lieu of the real thing,’ chortled Gwyn.

  De Wolfe scowled at him. Even this justified slight against his revered monarch was unwelcome. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We can’t sit on our backsides all day. There’s work to be done. Let’s get to Chagford. Then, Thomas, you’ll find out about the tinners.’

  There were still a few hours of daylight left when they rode up the last hill into Chagford. It was large enough to be called a town, with a small open market square that was also used for the coinage ceremonies. Tracks led out of the town in four directions, mostly downhill as the centre was on a rise.

  As they rode in slowly from the east side, John de Wolfe looked about him, trying to remember the place from his boyhood visit. It seemed smaller now than it had been in his memory, though undoubtedly it must have prospered and expanded in the intervening years. Since returning to Devon he had noticed this phenomenon a number of times and put it down to his acquaintance with great cities such as Paris, Marseilles and London.

  Two inns and a number of alehouses sat amongst the shop-houses in the main street, which ran across the top of the square. The rest of the town was the usual random collection of timber buildings of widely varying size, mostly thatched but some roofed with wooden shingles or split stone slabs. There were a few stone-built houses, and the church of St Michael, a few hundred yards from the square, was newly built of moorstone. Within a few yards of the larger buildings, smaller cottages and huts straggled out to the margins of Chagford, some planked, others of wattle and daub within timber frames.

  The coroner’s party came to a halt at the edge of the square, where a few old men stood bent-backed in the weak sunlight, staring at the newcomers as if they had arrived from a distant star. A handful of housewives were scanning the trays of a few hawkers, but clutched their children to their skirts at the approach of these forbidding strangers. The sight of their own bailiff reassured them and their apprehension soon turned to curiosity.

  ‘What do we do first, Crowner?’ rumbled Gwyn.

  ‘Arrange for somewhere to spend the night, then go to see the corpse.’ He looked questioningly at Justin Green, who turned in his saddle to point down the road leading southward.

  ‘My lord’s manor house is there above the valley, Crowner. We’ll pass it on the way. He told me before I left that there is food, fire and a clean pallet to sleep on, should you wish it.’

  De Wolfe grunted agreement. ‘I’ll give him thanks when we meet. Meanwhile, let’s get to this corpse while the light holds.’

  The bailiff kicked his horse into a trot and they rode through the centre of the little town and out on a track that led south-westwards. The land was green and steeply undulating, with tracts of woodland alternating with strip fields all around the town. On their left, the main feature was a prominent rounded knoll, which Justin called Meldon Hill, but further ahead they could see the edge of the escarpment that led up on to the huge plateau of Dartmoor.

  ‘How much further?’ whined Thomas from the rear, as they bumped along on the narrowing track, which began to rise as they neared the moor.

  ‘My lord’s manor barton is over there,’ said Justin, pointing to a large farmhouse on their right. ‘And that freeman’s house there is Thorne, so it’s less than two miles now,’ he added, waving at a collection of barns around a timber house ahead. ‘The stream-work we’re seeking is just below Thornworthy Down.’

  ‘What about this Walter Knapman?’ asked the coroner. ‘Would anyone wish to damage his trade by attacking his workmen?’

  The bailiff was silent for a moment. ‘I don’t see why they should. The victim was an overman, it’s true. He was in charge of the work and was a valuable fellow because of his experience. But Knapman has a dozen such teams, working all over the district. Killing one man would make little difference to the output – unless this is the first of a massacre,’ he added pessimistically.

  ‘But would anyone benefit from Knapman’s business being damaged?’ persisted de Wolfe.

  ‘All the other tin-masters, I suppose, though there’s little competition between them. They sell all they can dig, both at home and abroad. A lot goes to Germany and Flanders.’

  Then he hesitated and de Wolfe sensed that the other man had had a sudden thought. He glared across at the bailiff from under his beetling black brows. ‘Well, is there something else?’

  ‘There is gossip in the alehouses – only idle chatter, mind you – that another tin-master has long been trying to buy some of Knapman’s sites. But Knapman won’t sell. In fact he wants to acquire even more for himself.’

  ‘Who is this other man?’

  ‘Stephen Acland, another Chagford merchant. He’s not as prominent in tin as Walter, but he has four or five stream-works, as well as a big interest in sheep.’

  ‘But he wouldn’t kill because he can’t buy out Knapman, would he?’

  The bailiff made a wry face. ‘These tinners can be a strange lot, Crowner. They live in a world of their own, and some think they’re above the rest of the world. Passions can run high amongst them, as you might see if you come to Crockern Tor next week.’

  They fell silent as the track dipped down into a small valley, then rose again over the deeper glen of the South Teign stream. As they crested the rise, the coroner waved a gloved hand down to a small building below them on their right. It was built of rough moorstone, with a roof of thin slabs through which projected a crooked chimney.

  ‘What’s that place?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve seen a few like it today.’

  ‘A blowing-house, Crowner,’ explained Justin Green, ‘where the shode from the workings gets its first smelting to make the crude ingots that get stamped back in Chagford.’

  They came down to the water, where the path crossed a small clapper bridge made of great slabs of slaty stone resting on boulders in the stream bed.

  De Wolfe pulled Odin to a halt and looked down into the rushing water, which splashed its way down through a rocky bed banked with coarse gravel on either side. ‘This water’s very murky. I would have expected it to be crystal clear up here, well away from any habitation,’ he observed.

  ‘It’s often brown because of the run-off from the peat up on the moor. But that cloudiness is from the
tinners’ work further upstream. They constantly disturb the sand and gravel, washing away the tailings from the ore. Folks downstream, all the way to Kingsteignton, complain about the dirty water. They have to drink, cook and wash in the grit thrown in by the tinners.’ He sounded peevish, no doubt because he suffered himself.

  Gwyn spat contemplatively into the flowing brook. ‘Maybe yesterday it was running red, not cloudy, if that fellow was leaking into it from the stump of his neck!’ He grinned slyly at Thomas, whose pasty face had gone a shade paler at the thought.

  The coroner touched Odin’s flanks with his heels and they walked on, crossing to the other bank and following it along the river, the valley narrowing as they came up the cleft towards the moor. There was no agriculture up here and trees covered most of the ground, though as they rose to the bleaker, more exposed areas, they were twisted and stunted, except where the narrow valley bottoms gave some shelter.

  ‘We’re almost there, Crowner, just around the next bend,’ said the bailiff reassuringly.

  Thomas groaned with relief: the going had become rougher the further they went from civilisation.

  A few moments later, the glen straightened out for a couple of hundred yards and de Wolfe could see the length of the tin workings. The tinners had cut a deep gouge along the line of the stream so that the water now tumbled over a ledge at the upper end and ran down towards them between piles of rubble.

  Part-way up on the left was a small hut, and on the opposite side of the stream, a long rickety contraption of planks led some of the water from the upper cascade through a system of low troughs. Half a dozen men were hacking away at the upper bank, while others were raking the newly loosened burden and throwing it into the troughs.

  ‘They’re still working, then, even with their headless overman in that shed?’ De Wolfe was as tough as they come, but even he felt that work might have been suspended until the body had been taken away.

  ‘If they don’t work, they and their families don’t eat,’ replied Green bluntly. ‘Walter Knapman is known as a fair master, but he won’t pay a daily wage for anyone to sit at home and whittle sticks.’