The Awful Secret

by Bernard Knight

  ‘This witness I mentioned confirms that the vessel, known as the Saint Isan, was attacked by pirates somewhere between here and Lundy Island. We know of this death, and the survivor claims he saw the ship’s master killed, so we assume that the rest of the crew were also killed or drowned.’ He paused to look down at the shrouded figure at his feet. ‘This man, Roger of Bristol, was most certainly murdered.’

  He motioned to Gwyn, who pulled off the canvas and displayed the corpse to the jury. As they shuffled nearer for a better view, the coroner pointed out the deep slash in the belly, livid against the whitened skin. ‘A typical pike wound. There is no explanation other than murder.’

  Again his dark face came up and his eyes slowly ranged across the villagers, brooding on each face in turn. ‘Have any of you here any knowledge of who may have done this thing?’ he boomed. ‘Have you heard tell of any piracy in these waters?’

  There was muttering and whispering and general shaking of heads, and the coroner, not really expecting any useful response, was about to carry on speaking when a quavering voice piped up from the middle of the crowd, ‘I have heard tell, sir, that them Appledore folk are not above a bit of thieving at sea.’

  This provoked a further buzz and another man, dressed in the short blue serge tunic of a sailor or fisherman, called out, ‘I do know they’ve pillaged a wreck last year, afore the lord’s steward could get to it. That was down Clovelly way.’

  John de Wolfe spent a few minutes trying to get more concrete evidence than these rumours, but he ended with the suspicion that there was bad blood between Ilfracombe and Appledore, a small village on the other side of the river from Barnstaple. After he had ended the inquest, with the curt decision that Roger of Bristol had been killed against the king’s peace by persons as yet unknown, he dismissed the ragged jury and turned to Gwyn and Thomas. ‘What d’you think of these Appledore accusations, eh?’

  ‘Village gossip, that’s all,’ grunted his ginger henchman. ‘Any hamlet will strip a wreck, given the chance. This one was already pillaged or they would have stolen every last raisin.’

  ‘But why Appledore? They might just as well have blamed Combe Martin or Bideford – or Lundy itself, which is more likely,’ objected Thomas.

  De Wolfe shrugged. ‘Some local spite, no doubt. You have to live in one of these villages to fathom the petty disputes they dredge up.’ He looked thoughtfully at the corpse. ‘Though they may be right, of course.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  In which Crowner John meets an old acquaintance

  Another long day’s ride meant that it was almost dusk when, on the following evening, they reached Exeter’s North Gate. An early start from Umberleigh, a few miles south of Barnstaple, had enabled them to ride steadily, allowing John’s leg and his clerk’s backside to survive the many hours in the saddle.

  When the coroner reached his house in Martin’s Lane, he saw Odin settled in his stable opposite, then went wearily through his front door and took off his riding clothes in the vestibule. In the hall, his wife was sitting in her usual place before the hearth, partly hidden by the hood of her monk’s chair. At the sound of the creaking door, she peered around its edge. When she saw him, she gave a throaty grunt and turned back to the fire. ‘You’ve deigned to come home, I see.’ It was her usual frosty greeting.

  De Wolfe sighed. He was in no mood for a fight: he was tired and hungry. ‘It’s a long ride from Ilfracombe, in under a day and a half,’ he muttered.

  ‘You’re a fool to attempt it, with that leg,’ she retorted illogically. After complaining about the length of his absence, she was now implying that he should have stayed longer on the way back.

  John ignored this and, sinking on to a bench at the empty table, gave a great yell for Mary. She had already heard him returning and soon bustled in with a wooden bowl of broth and a small loaf, which she put in front of him with a broad wink.

  ‘Get that down you, master. I’ll bring some salt fish and turnips afterwards.’

  Brutus had ambled in after her and now sat between the coroner’s knees under the table, with his big brown head on John’s lap, waiting for some titbits of bread soaked in ham broth.

  Matilda’s brief conversation had dried up and now she studiedly ignored her husband. It suited him to have some peace, at least until he had finished the food that Mary brought in relays, including a jug of hot spiced wine.

  Afterwards, he limped to the fireside and dropped into the other cowled chair, but his leg had stiffened up and was crying out for exercise. He decided that he would best get that by walking down to the Bush to see Nesta. However, he felt that he should try to smooth over relations with Matilda before he left her again.

  His first efforts, telling her of the events in Ilfracombe, were met with curt derision. ‘All that way to see a dead shipman and a half-drowned Breton! What business is that of a coroner? You should leave such petty matters to the bailiffs.’ Matilda’s ideas of the duties of a county coroner were modelled on those of her brother, who sat comfortably in his chamber and gave orders to minions whilst enjoying the social status of a senior law officer and administrator. Richard de Revelle was not a ‘hands-on’ person like de Wolfe; he was an aspiring politician – or had been until he had burnt his fingers over his support for Prince John’s rebellion.

  Tonight de Wolfe could not bring himself to argue the matter – he was tired of the old controversy, which seemed to be building up again after the respite that his accident and her grudging nursing care had provided. For the past two months, Matilda had been single-minded in her determination to bring him back to health and activity. She had held her tongue about his many faults and, though uncommunicative on anything other than his welfare, she had avoided any censure of his affairs with other women. Now, though, there were signs that the truce was over and that Matilda was slipping back to her old self.

  He doggedly changed the subject in an effort to coax her out of her sulk, telling her of the curious persistence of the man who peered at him around corners. Thankfully he found that, for some reason, this tale seemed to catch her attention. ‘Surely you can recollect the face?’ she asked. ‘You’ve not so many friends that his is lost in the crowd!’

  Ignoring the gibe, he said, ‘It’s been niggling at my mind for a couple of days – and nights, when I can’t sleep. There’s something familiar about his features but for the life of me I can’t put a name to him.’

  ‘No doubt it’s some old drinking crony – or a bloodthirsty acquaintance from your years of slaughter on the battlefield. But why should he not approach you?’

  De Wolfe scowled into the glowing fire, his mind’s eye seeing the mysterious fellow’s face once again. ‘I can’t imagine what he can be up to – but if he appears once more, Gwyn will get him. He’s to keep a special watch for the man. He only appears within the city, so he can’t vanish over the horizon.’

  The subject was soon exhausted and, as John had hoped, Matilda shortly left the growing darkness of the hall to go up to her solar, where Lucille would brush her hair and get her dressed for bed. As soon as she had gone, he left the house and, with Brutus sniffing contentedly at his heels, made his way slowly down to his favourite tavern to see his favourite woman.

  Early next morning, the coroner decided to call upon the sheriff to tell him of the situation in the north of the county. Soon after a dawn breakfast, he walked up to Rougemont, giving his aching leg every chance to strengthen itself with more exercise. He called first at the cubbyhole in the undercroft, where Gwyn and Thomas were squeezed into a space a quarter the size of their usual chamber in the gatehouse. The Cornishman grumbled at the cold dampness of the room, caused by the wet sheen on the inner wall, whose stones were covered with green mould. Thomas was crushed against a side wall, trying to write on his rolls at their trestle table, which now half filled the tiny space.

  ‘When I return, Gwyn, I want you to follow me into the town at a few paces distance,’ de Wolfe commanded. ‘If this accurs
ed fellow appears, catch him and discover what he wants. Put your dagger to his throat, if needs be!’ With this harsh admonition, the coroner stumped up the few stone steps to the churned turf of the inner ward and walked around the corner to the wooden stairway that gave entrance to the keep.

  A few moments later, he pushed open the door to de Revelle’s chamber and marched in without warning. This time, the sheriff was not at his table signing documents, but was standing, with his back to de Wolfe, in a small alcove at the further end of the room. A curtain hung on a pole across the entrance to offer some rudimentary privacy but it was pulled back to reveal his brother-in-law relieving himself down a stone shaft built into the thickness of the wall. This came out at the foot of the keep, adding further ordure to the mess in the inner ward.

  Hearing footsteps, the sheriff dropped the front of his tunic and spat down the hole in front of him. ‘Can’t I even use the garde-robe without someone bursting in without a by-your-leave?’ he snarled, without turning round.

  ‘Don’t worry, Richard, I’ve seen men having a piss before now,’ grunted de Wolfe. ‘When you’ve emptied your bladder, I’ll give you some news that might interest you.’

  De Revelle spun round, shaking the folds of his green robe back into place. ‘It’s you, John. I might have guessed that only you would barge in here unheralded. What news is this?’

  He went to the table and settled himself behind it in his chair, his small, pointed beard jutting forward as if to defy de Wolfe to deliver anything that might be of the slightest import to him.

  The coroner leaned on the other side of the table, his knuckles on the oak boards, hunched forward so that his big hooked nose was aimed at the sheriff like a lance. ‘Piracy, that’s the news! Murder and theft against the king’s peace up on the coast around Ilfracombe.’ He deliberately emphasised ‘the king’s peace’: ever since he had been appointed last September, there had been a running battle between the coroner and sheriff about the prosecution of serious crimes. Now, after he had described the events of his visit to Ilfracombe, he bluntly demanded of de Revelle some action against the pirates. ‘It’s your county, as far as law and order are concerned,’ he boomed. ‘I’m charged with dealing with wrecks and dead bodies, but you are the king’s representative here and it’s up to you to keep his peace.’ Again he emphasised the king, as a reminder that it was the Lionheart who was the sheriff’s raison d’être and that he had better be single-minded about that fact.

  But, typically, de Revelle tried to wriggle out of his responsibilities. ‘I’m sheriff of the county of Devon, not of all the bloody sea around its coasts!’ he blustered. ‘Let the king’s navy deal with any pirates.’

  The lean, black form of the coroner bent even closer to the dandyish figure, who backed away slightly. ‘When they murder subjects of the king and loot ships from one of his major cities, that’s business for the enforcers of law in this or any other county!’ he barked. ‘Unless you have decided not to uphold the peace of your sovereign, King Richard?’ This was a thinly veiled reminder that the sheriff’s tenure of office depended on his behaviour, as far as loyalists were concerned – men like Lord Guy Ferrars and Reginald de Courcy, as well as de Wolfe himself.

  De Revelle recognised the warning and grudgingly came to heel. ‘Very well. What’s the best way to go about this? From what I’ve heard in the past, we need look no further than Lundy. It was ever a nest of pirates, right back to the days of the Vikings.’ It occurred to neither of them that their own Norman blood was only a few generations removed from those same Norse pirates who had settled in northern France.

  When he saw that his brother-in-law was disposed to be more reasonable, de Wolfe relaxed and moved back from the edge of the table. ‘I agree. It’s quite possible that William de Marisco and his island stronghold might be the source of this trouble. But there was a hint that this particular outrage may have come from Appledore.’

  The sheriff’s fair eyebrows rose a little. ‘Appledore? Seems unlikely that they would turn to piracy without de Grenville knowing about it – unless you’re suggesting that he’s party to it.’

  De Wolfe gave one of his grunts: the de Grenville family held the lordship of Bideford, which included Appledore, but he wouldn’t put a little piracy past them if the pickings were good enough. ‘Early days yet. We need to find out more facts before we start accusing anyone.’

  This was another dig at Richard, whose methods of detecting crime usually began in the torture chamber below the keep, rather than through seeking the truth in the town or countryside. De Wolfe carried on with his advice. ‘Send a few men-at-arms up there for a start. I’ll go with them and look around the ports there – Bideford, Appledore, Barnstaple, maybe even Bude. Shake the tree hard enough and maybe some fruit will fall out.’

  With obvious reluctance, the sheriff agreed to let Sergeant Gabriel and four of his men go up to the north of the county with the coroner for a couple of days. As John was leaving, he called after him, ‘It’ll be Lundy, you mark my words! Those de Mariscos are evil bastards – they have no respect for human life. Or the king’s peace.’

  ‘That’s rich, coming from you!’ de Wolfe muttered cynically, and slammed the door behind him.

  The coroner had no duties until noon, when he had to attend two hangings at the Magdalen Tree outside the city walls so he decided to pay a visit to his mistress. On the way, he put his head into his miserable office and warned Gwyn that he was going to walk through the streets and to keep a sharp eye out for his annoying mystery man. The shaggy-haired Cornishman gave him a few moments’ start, then followed him at a discreet distance, keeping back to match the slow pace of his master, who still had a slight limp. They went out through the gatehouse of Rougemont and down Castle Hill, then turned into the main street.

  Gwyn kept him in sight, pushing through the folk that thronged the narrow streets – shoppers, porters, loungers, pedlars and the rest. The coroner was an easy man to shadow, standing a head taller than most, his black hair bobbing over the collar of his mottled grey cloak.

  Towards the end of the street, approaching Milk Lane that turned down to Butcher’s Row, the officer saw him suddenly stop dead in his tracks and stare to his left. Then he waved an arm at something out of sight and Gwyn tried to close the distance between them. A porter with two great bales of wool hanging from a pole over his shoulder got in his way, just as a donkey with wide side-panniers tried to pass him. Cursing and pushing, the Cornishman lost a valuable minute in getting to de Wolfe’s side, by which time the coroner had moved to the edge of the street, behind a stall selling trinkets and herbs. ‘He was there, blast him!’ fumed de Wolfe, pointing at a narrow gap between the side wall of a tall house and an adjacent storehouse. ‘I can’t move fast enough with this bloody leg of mine.’

  Gwyn dashed into the gap, his huge shoulders almost filling the space between the two walls. ‘I’ll find him this time, never fear!’ he yelled over his shoulder.

  ‘If you do, I’ll be at the Bush,’ called his master and, with a snarl of disgust at his own infirmity, carried on down the street on his way to Idle Lane.

  Not long afterwards, as the cathedral bell tolled for the morning high mass at about the tenth hour, Gwyn was bending his head beneath the low lintel of the tavern doorway, staring about in the smoky gloom for de Wolfe. There were only a few customers at that hour and Nesta was sitting with him at his customary table near the hearth, a jar of ale in front of him. The landlady beckoned to Gwyn, then yelled at the ancient potman to bring drink, bread and cheese for the coroner’s ever-hungry henchman.

  ‘I got him!’ rumbled Gwyn triumphantly, as he dropped heavily on to a bench opposite the pair.

  ‘So where is he?’ demanded de Wolfe, looking expectantly at the doorway. ‘Did you have to fight him? Or did you kill him, by chance?’

  His officer shook his head, as Edwin banged a pot before him and placed a small loaf and a hunk of rock-hard cheese on the scrubbed boards of the table. ‘N
o fight, no struggle. The man wants to meet you secretly, so I told him to come to your house at the second hour this afternoon. You’ll be back from the gibbeting and had your meal by then.’

  ‘But who is he, this mystery man?’ demanded Nesta, her pert face quivering with curiosity as Gwyn stuffed his mouth with bread.

  De Wolfe was accustomed to his bodyguard’s relaxed attitude to communicating news, but even so he jabbed a forefinger across the table towards him. ‘Swallow that quickly and tell us, or I’ll pull that moustache clean off your face, damn you!’

  Gwyn gulped down his mouthful and wiped the back of a huge hand across his mouth. ‘He said his name was Gilbert de Ridefort and that he was sure you’d remember him.’

  De Wolfe sat back in astonishment. ‘Good God, of course I do! Are you sure that was the name he gave?’

  ‘No doubt at all – he made me repeat it a couple of times. Said he daren’t show himself too openly and he wasn’t sure he could depend on you, now that you’re a king’s law officer.’

  Nesta was looking from one to the other for enlightenment. ‘So who is he? And why didn’t you recognise him before, if you knew him, John?’

  De Wolfe’s face was drawn into a scowl of concentration. ‘It was the beard and moustache – or rather the lack of them – that confused me. When I knew him, he had a faceful of dark brown hair. I’d never seen him shaven, as he is now. But, yes, the eyes and nose are Gilbert’s.’

  ‘So who is he? And why all this subterfuge?’ asked the auburn-haired tavern keeper.

  ‘He is a Knight of the Temple – or was.’

  ‘Why “was”?’

  ‘With no beard or moustache, something is amiss. They demand strictly that no Templar is shaven.’

  Although everyone knew of the famous warrior monks, whose full title was the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, most people knew little about them, except that they were now rich, powerful and ruthless.