The Tinner's Corpse

by Bernard Knight

  ‘I’ve only a handful of men – just enough to escort the sheriff over to Lydford,’ said the sergeant, apprehensively.

  The rabble now almost filled the small square, jostling its way to the front of the coinage enclosure. Gabriel pushed his way round the edge of the crowd to reach Richard de Revelle, both to guard him and to get some instructions. Gwyn followed him, his huge shoulders barging a way through the agitated mob. A few men rounded on him, but he shoved them aside, his ham-like hands thrusting their chests or even faces out of his path.

  The crowd came to a stop at the rope girdling the shelter and rapidly flowed all around it, like flood water encircling an island. When Gwyn got to the rope he could see de Revelle, pallid-faced, pressed alongside the manor lord of Lydford at the end of the shelter. Gabriel and his handful of soldiers clustered around them, their eyes roving around uneasily beneath their basin-like helmets. They wore no chain-mail, except iron plates on the shoulders of their boiled leather cuirasses, and their hands rested nervously on the hilts of their sheathed broadswords.

  The assay officers gave up any attempt to continue their work, and as they withdrew to the back of the shelter, there was a sudden movement in the mob and a dishevelled figure was ejected to the front. His hands were lashed behind his back with a rope, the other end grasped by a burly tinner. Two others had dragged him to the front by his arms and now stood alongside him, shaking him roughly by pulls on his wrists. As Gwyn watched, another drunken roughneck left the edge of the crowd, and came to give the prisoner a punch in the face.

  ‘Here’s the bastard who’s caused all the trouble – and a bloody murderer into the bargain!’ he yelled, and sank back into the crowd.

  Now Gwyn could see the victim more clearly, as he stood defiantly facing the shelter, snow spattering his hair and blood running from the corner of his mouth, where the blow had cut his lip.

  He was tall and spare to the point of emaciation, with long, tangled grey hair around a gaunt, wild-looking face. Gwyn estimated his age at well over sixty, and in spite of his haggard leanness, he had a leathery hardness that told of his solitary survival on Dartmoor. This could be none other than Aethelfrith, the crazy Saxon – confirmed by the shouts and jeers that came from the mob.

  ‘Here he is, Sheriff! This is Aethelfrith, God rot him! You’re the Lord Warden, so pronounce his fate to us – or we’ll do it for you!’ yelled the man, a big, black-bearded tinner from near Lydford.

  This triggered a fresh outburst of shouting from the crowd, directed as much at de Revelle as at the Saxon, a mixture of jeers and challenge.

  The sheriff stood undecided, staring at this unexpected drama. As he seemed tongue-tied, Geoffrey Fitz-Peters, who had his own eye on the Wardenship, stepped forward to confront the tinners. ‘What’s been happening, men? Where did you find this man?’

  Aethelfrith was given such a push from behind that he staggered and fell to his knees in the snow. Somehow, though, he kept a stolid dignity, glaring up at Fitz-Peters with silent defiance on his angular face.

  ‘Caught red-handed this time!’ yelled one of the men who had held his arms. ‘Smashing up one of the settling-troughs with an axe, up at Scorhill on the North Teign, not three miles from the town here!’

  ‘We’re going to hang him right now, Warden. You can pass that judgement on him, if you like – but hang he will, within the hour, whether you wish it or not,’ boomed Blackbeard.

  There was an even louder babble of cries, all bloodthirsty demands for Aethelfrith’s life.

  ‘He slew Henry of Tunnaford, right enough!’ yelled one. Others screamed that he must also be the killer of their master, Walter Knapman, and yet more yelled that the damage to their stream-works and blowing-houses must be put down to the mad Saxon.

  The mood became uglier as each man provoked his neighbours, until the surging mob threatened to break through the coinage rope. Even the supports of the enclosure were shaking with the press of men against them, snow falling off the edges of the flimsy roof. Geoffrey Fitz-Peters judged that this was no time to play either hero or candidate for the Wardenship and he stepped back to where the sheriff was trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, with his sergeant and soldiers clustered around him.

  ‘You’ll have to say something to them, Richard. They’re in an ugly mood,’ he advised, in a low voice. Grasping his arm, he pulled de Revelle forward a few paces and the sheriff had no option but to confront the crowd.

  ‘What proof have you, men?’ he shouted, over the din. ‘Was he caught actually wreaking damage?’

  There was a cacophony of yells, all confirming the Saxon’s guilt. Aethelfrith was now jerked back to his feet by two men on each side of him. He began to say something, but the tinner on his left gave him another punch in the mouth that silenced any confession or denial.

  Nervously, de Revelle tried to assess his safest course of action. Already deeply unpopular, he feared that these unruly tinners might turn on him if he crossed them. With only a handful of men-at-arms, a hundred angry moor-men would swamp any resistance, and though he was the county’s law-enforcer, he had no wish to take any chances with his own life and limb against this enraged mob. However, he decided to make a token gesture towards the proper course of justice. ‘If he has done these things, then he should be brought to the Shire Court – or even before the King’s justices,’ he shouted over their heads, conveniently forgetting his usual antipathy to the royal courts. His words were met with derision, and the hisses, catcalls and yelled abuse became even more virulent. The mob surged forward again, and this time the rope was torn from one of the pillars and the front line of men erupted into the coinage enclosure.

  De Revelle stepped back rapidly and turned to Fitz-Peters, shrugging his shoulders in desperation. ‘They’ll not listen to reason now,’ he said.

  Gwyn watched and listened with increasing anxiety, wishing that the formidable coroner was here to control the situation. In de Wolfe’s absence he felt obliged to do his best and pushed himself along towards the men who were pinioning Aethelfrith.

  Before he reached them, his captors started to pummel the old man about the head and chest, yelling at him to confess. At last, the Saxon started to yell back, in a clear, deep voice that held no trace of fear, though he had to spit blood every few words to clear his lips. ‘Aye, you Norman swine, I’ll confess! Confess to being a descendant of the true race who was here before you French bandits came to steal our land! Confess to loving the very ground that we held for centuries. Confess to having watched you bastards kill my son on the moor twenty years ago for trying to claim his own stake in the tinning!’ He got no further, as someone struck him with a club on the side of the head, a blow that sent Aethelfrith staggering, held up only by his tormentors.

  This was too much for Gwyn and, with a roar like a bull, he drove his way forward and tore the club from the hand of the assailant. ‘Stop this!’ he boomed. ‘Every man deserves a fair hearing before he’s condemned.’

  ‘Who the hell d’you think you are?’ screamed an enraged Blackbeard.

  ‘The coroner’s officer – King Richard’s coroner!’ Gwyn looked a formidable figure, topping most of the tinners – many of whom were big men – by half a head. But their mood was so inflamed that they took unkindly to any interference.

  ‘Get out of the way, man, this is not crowner’s business. These are the Stannaries, and we are a law unto ourselves,’ snarled one of the men who was gripping the Saxon.

  ‘Not where it concerns life or limb. The King’s law runs there and well you know it. Ask the sheriff – he’ll tell you.’ Gwyn turned to wave an arm at where de Revelle skulked at the end of the enclosure.

  Reluctantly, de Revelle nodded. ‘He’s right, but I’ve already told you that.’

  This was met with more jeers, and the burly man with the jet beard and moustache gave Gwyn a violent buffet in the chest. ‘Clear off, damn you! Stop trying to interfere in what’s none of your bloody business.’

  For
answer, the Cornishman threw a massive arm around the other’s neck, gave him a punch in the kidneys that should have felled a donkey and threw him to the ground. Amid bellows of rage and clutching hands, Gwyn was pulled back, while the bearded man climbed painfully to his feet.

  Suddenly, there was a flash of steel as Gwyn’s adversary reached behind him and pulled a dagger from his belt. With a furious yell, he launched himself at the Cornishman, the knife flashing towards his heart. The thick leather of Gwyn’s jerkin took the point, and though it penetrated enough to slash skin and muscle, it went no further. With his own roar of rage, he tore free from those hanging on to his arms, and grabbed the wrist holding the dagger. With his other hand, he smashed Blackbeard on the side of the head, just behind the ear. The man crumpled to the trampled slush underfoot and lay motionless. Then, huge as he was, Gwyn had no chance against the fury of a hundred tinners and he vanished to the floor under a press of bodies, all trying to beat him to death.

  As so often happened, snow on Dartmoor meant rain in Exeter, John de Wolfe went about his business that day in an intermittent cold drizzle that soaked his cape and turned the streets into a sticky morass of mud and filth. The previous night, he had fallen dog-tired on to his bed, too weary even to respond to Matilda’s customary nagging. He told her briefly about Thomas’s dive from the cathedral gallery, but her snubbing response seemed to indicate that she would have been interested only if his attempt had succeeded.

  Even before he had finished an early breakfast, one of the town bailiffs arrived to report a fatal accident on the quayside, where the wheel of an ox-cart had collapsed and a load of stone imported from Caen had fallen on a workman. John went to inspect the scene and look at the body but, missing both Gwyn’s help and Thomas’s scribing ability, decided to postpone the inquest until he knew when his clerk would be available.

  With this in mind, he went from the quayside up to St John’s Hospital to see how the little man was faring. John de Alençon was there already, and de Wolfe was surprised and gratified to find that de Peyne’s mood had improved markedly, even if his skin and muscles were still crying out in protest.

  ‘He can go home when he chooses,’ said Brother Saulf encouragingly. ‘There is nothing seriously amiss. The shock has passed and he has no broken bones, only bruises, though he’ll suffer a couple of days’ aches and stiffness. As the Archdeacon has been telling him, the age of miracles is certainly not yet over.’

  As the two Johns left the little priory together, the coroner said how glad he was to see such an improvement in his clerk’s melancholy.

  De Alençon smiled, his blue eyes twinkling in his lean, ascetic face. ‘Though I truly believe that such escapes are ordained by the Almighty, I must admit to labouring the point somewhat to my nephew. His conviction that his miraculous deliverance is a sign from above has greatly lightened his mind.’

  The coroner gave his friend a lopsided grin. ‘Thank God for that – and I mean that literally, John. But is there no real hope of his ever being accepted back into Holy Orders?’

  ‘Not for some time – and certainly not in Exeter as long as the present chapter contains certain people.’

  ‘Speaking selfishly, though I am sorry for Thomas, I would be lost without his skills,’ mused de Wolfe aloud, ‘so let’s see what a year or so might bring. Perhaps eventually he could return to Winchester.’

  They parted at Martin’s Lane, where the coroner collected Odin and rode out of the city to the gallows beyond Magdalene Street. Here he witnessed two Friday executions, one of an outlaw who had been caught robbing a travelling merchant of his purse holding fourteen pennies, two more than the statutory shilling that meant a felony and the death penalty. It had been a toss-up as to whether to behead him for being a captured outlaw or hanging him for the felony, but the Shire Court, under Richard de Revelle, discovered that the fee for hanging was less. As the man had no property, John had no interest in the matter, other than eventually to record the event on his rolls.

  The other execution was of a weaver who had tried to strangle his wife in a fit of anger when he discovered that she had committed adultery with his brother. De Wolfe had tried hard to delay the trial until the King’s justices came for the Eyre of Assize, but as the usual waiting stretched into months with no sign of their arrival, the sheriff and the burgesses had insisted on summary conviction in the Shire Court. As the weaver had a house and a workshop, John would have to assess his property and record it for the judges, who would decide how much to confiscate for the Crown and how much – if any – to leave for the family of the sinful widow. But with Thomas out of commission, there was little he could do for now: his own skills with a quill and ink were still negligible.

  On the way back from the gallows, he passed by the South Gate and went through the fields and garden of Southernhay to reach the Water Gate, which had been driven through the angle of the city wall, at the top of the slope leading down to the quay. From there he went to the house of Matthew Knapman and found the tin-merchant in his ground-floor warehouse, with Peter Jordan and a burly Saxon workman. They were stacking and tallying bars, some of black tin, which had just arrived from yesterday’s coinage at Chagford. Others, kept separate, were the cleaner, shinier ingots from the re-smelting, ready for export.

  Matthew, stout and red-faced, put down the notched tally-stick and his knife and waved the workman out into the backyard. ‘Is there any news from Chagford or Dunsford?’ he asked anxiously.

  The coroner shook his dark head. ‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me something. I wondered if your brother’s testament had shed light on who would gain most from his death.’

  Peter, dressed in a neat brown tunic with a long leather apron tied around his waist, answered for his master. ‘We went to see Robert Courteman, the lawyer, but he would tell us nothing. We must wait until all the family are present.’

  ‘And when might that be?’

  ‘We hear it should be on Sunday, for the widow is now said to be coming to Exeter for that very purpose. No doubt she will bring her damned brother and her mother,’ he added, with ill-concealed bitterness.

  De Wolfe noticed that he called his stepmother ‘the widow’, rather than use her name. This was a family ridden with antagonism, he thought, all vying with each other for the best share of the spoils. To give Matthew credit, he seemed outwardly more concerned with the hunt for Walter’s killer than with the will, but de Wolfe had no news for him on that score. ‘I have left my officer in Chagford to pick up any news that may be dropped during the coinage. He’s due back tonight, so I will let you know if anything more has happened.’

  Back in his cramped, draughty chamber at the top of the gatehouse at Rougemont, de Wolfe laboriously wrote a few words on a scrap piece of parchment, putting down the names of the two hanged men and the victim of the ox-cart accident so that he would not forget them by the time Thomas came back and he could dictate a full account. By now it was late morning and rain was still falling from the leaden sky. Going to the niche in the rough stone wall, he took an earthenware mug and filled it from Gwyn’s gallon jar on the floor. Without his two assistants to visit the stalls, there was no bread, meat or cheese, and as he sat alone in the bare cell, drinking sour cider, he realised that he missed their company, much as their bickering often irritated him.

  He hoped fervently that Thomas would soon be back on duty; without proper records, the coroner’s business would become chaotic and, indeed, futile, for de Wolfe’s main function was to record all these legal events for the royal courts. He went on to wonder how the new coroner, Theobald Fitz-Ivo, was managing, with no experience and, in de Wolfe’s opinion, a severe shortage of brains and common sense.

  His drink finished, de Wolfe sat hunched over his table, fingers drumming idly on the rough boards. There was nothing else he could do without Thomas and the cider had merely reminded him that his stomach was rumbling for want of food. The prospect of sitting opposite Matilda for dinner in his own hall di
d not appeal and a devil came to sit on his shoulder to whisper ‘The Bush’ in his ear.

  Leaving Rougemont, his feet took him almost unbidden down to Idle Lane, but when he came to the edge of the barren plot on which the tavern stood, he hovered uncertainly. For a man of such single-minded determination, used to quick, firm decisions, this wavering was foreign indeed. One part of his mind cursed the affairs of heart and flesh for so undermining his usual strength of will. Standing on the wet road, like a lanky black heron, he stared across at the Bush, willing Nesta to come out alone so that he could talk to her without curious eyes watching them and the bold face of Alan of Lyme grinning in the background. But though a customer or two came and went through the low front door, there was no sign of his former mistress – as was to be expected, he told himself angrily. She always had business inside, in the kitchens or the ale-room or on the upper floor. The thought of the little upstairs room and the thrice-damned Alan occupying the French bed he had bought, made him grind his teeth in jealous rage.

  After five minutes of lurking in the street like a lovesick youth, de Wolfe shook himself back to his senses and walked slowly past the inn, hoping that Nesta would appear and fall into his arms as he passed the door. Nothing of the kind happened and, feeling foolish, he walked on to the other end of the lane, then turned and slowly repeated the process. By the time he got back to his original spot, he was in a cold rage, mostly with himself for his foolish, adolescent behaviour. A knight of the realm, a senior law officer and a veteran of countless wars, skulking in a back-street to stalk a lover who had rejected him!

  ‘To hell with it,’ he muttered aloud, to a startled rat snuffling in the garbage at his feet, ‘I’m going to eat at the Golden Hind.’

  A large meat pie and two quarts of ale later, he felt slightly better and in the mood to write off the Welsh redhead as water under the bridge. His thoughts were already straying to Dawlish and the fair Hilda – he even wondered if he might engineer a visit soon to Salcombe, where another pleasant widow had not had his attentions for six months and more.