Crowner Royal (Crowner John Mysteries) (20 page)

‘It seems ridiculous for officers to come all the way from the city to deal with it, when we have England’s premier coroner sitting right here,’ effused Hawise d’Ayncourt, fluttering her eyelashes at John as she spoke.

‘Perhaps an assault on a mere blacksmith is insufficient to warrant the attention of a royal coroner,’ said her husband, with a trace of sarcasm in his tone.

‘Was he robbed?’ asked Bernard de Montfort, as he speared another grilled herring and laid it on his trencher. ‘That would seem to be the most likely motive for killing a tradesman.’

De Wolfe shook his head. ‘My clerk, who knows everything, says he was not. That’s all I know about the matter. I am more concerned about the death of that poor fellow from the guest chambers. I suppose you have heard no other rumours from upstairs, as you are residing there?’

Renaud de Seigneur shook his head. ‘We are just passing guests, we are not privy to the gossip of the servants.’

Hawise gave John a coy look, lowering her eyes as she spoke. ‘All I have gathered is that Basil, if that was his name, was very friendly with a young monk across the yard. Unusually friendly, it would seem!’ she added archly.

Her meaning was clear, but no one responded to her, this being a subject about which delicate ladies were supposed to remain ignorant. Adroitly changing the subject, Ranulf observed that their dining regime would almost certainly be disrupted when the queen arrived.

‘This Lesser Hall was used by the king when he was in residence – as did his father Henry before him. Though usually the king ate in his chambers above, he sometimes used this for dining, as well as for large meetings and sessions of the Royal Council. I expect that Eleanor will revert to what she was used to, before her husband locked her away for sixteen years!’

De Montfort in his turn shied away from the unwelcome memory of the old king’s vengeance upon Eleanor for encouraging his sons to revolt against him. ‘I hear there will be an elaborate feast when she arrives. Will that be in here, I wonder?’

As usual, Ranulf was the best informed. ‘I hear that it is likely to be in the Great Hall, for already the Keeper of the Palace is muttering about extra transport to bring in supplies from both the countryside and the city. I suspect that Hubert wishes to keep on the right side of the Queen Mother, for she is still a powerful force on both sides of the Channel, with great influence with her two sons.’

De Wolfe privately marvelled at the endless capacity for gossip and scandal possessed by these people at court. Most of it went over his head, as he did not know the persons involved – and did not much care about them. The talk went on as they ate their way through the stews, the roasts and the puddings, but eventually Hawise came around to John’s private life.

‘I suspect you are a dark horse, Sir John. I heard rumours that you were attached to a very comely Welsh woman before you came to Westminster. Just as sailors have a girl in every port, do coroners have ladies in every jurisdiction?’

Her husband gave a little snigger at this and John felt like kicking him under the table. How in God’s name did she hear of Nesta? he wondered irritably. But even though Hawise annoyed him greatly, he still found her alluring, with her habit of lowering her eyes and showing those long dark lashes, before lifting them again to give him a languorous look. Perhaps his last two nights of passion had increased his amorous appetite, but he decided that he would not be averse to giving her what she obviously desired.

It was just as well that Bernard de Montfort diverted his attention at that point, taking the conversation in a different direction.

‘It seems the purpose of this forthcoming perambulation is to escort Queen Eleanor to Gloucester to meet her son John,’ he said, folding his hands across his overfilled stomach. ‘I have never met the prince, but I hear that you have had dealings with him in the past. What is he like? We hear such conflicting reports about his character.’

This was sensitive ground and de Wolfe, though he had very strong views on the subject, was not going to open his mind to a casual acquaintance, especially not knowing where such opinions might be whispered by this garrulous crowd.

‘I have never been in his presence either,’ he hedged. ‘He was conspicuously absent from the Crusade and took advantage of his brother’s misfortunes there, as is common knowledge.’

‘But were you not in Ireland when he was in charge there?’ persisted the archdeacon, again revealing the depth of his knowledge about de Wolfe and his affairs.

John grinned wryly. ‘He was not there for long and I never met him. He caused so much chaos with his irresponsible actions that King Henry soon had to recall him.’

‘You do not seem overfond of the Count of Mortain,’ said Renaud.

‘I have good reason not to be,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘Several times have I been involved in defeating his schemes – though since his failed revolt against the king two years ago, he never acts directly himself, but gets others to do his dirty work!’

He was thinking of his own brother-in-law, Richard de Revelle, the former sheriff of Devon, as well as the de la Pomeroy family, to say nothing of the bishops of Exeter and of Coventry, all of whom were eager to put John on the throne.

‘Will your presence in his court in Gloucester not be an embarrassment to you?’ asked Bernard de Montfort.

John shrugged. ‘It might be to him, but my back is broad! I have no cause to be concerned about it.’ He paused, then conceded that the prince had been quiet of late, with no more rumours of him continuing to plot against his elder brother.

Ranulf, sensing that the coroner was uneasy with the turn that the conversation had taken, adroitly steered it back to the slaying of the ironworker. ‘If you have abandoned your interest in the case, John, what will happen now?’

De Wolfe noticed that the marshal’s man had called him by his Christian name for the first time, and was not averse to that. Ranulf was a pleasant and intelligent person he was glad to have as a friend, even though he must have been more than a decade younger than John.

‘The sheriffs have not deigned to confide in me, though I gave them all the information I could, sparse though it was,’ he replied. ‘I presume that they will examine the body themselves and hold some kind of inquiry.’

The archdeacon nodded. ‘They were in the mortuary shed behind the abbey infirmary late this afternoon, then I saw this sheriff fellow ride off again for the city. I know the corpse is to be buried in the cemetery tomorrow, but I heard nothing about any public inquest, such as you hold.’

John gave one of his throat-clearings, a catch-all response he was fond of when he had nothing useful to say. It annoyed him to think that the self-important Robert fitz Durand seemed to be making little effort to investigate the murder and in spite of his claim to have washed his hands of the whole affair, he had an urge to find out more for himself. When the meal was finished, they all dispersed, Hawise d’Ayncourt giving him another languorous smile, as she trailed reluctantly behind her husband.

De Wolfe made straight for the Deacon alehouse, where he guessed that Gwyn would be found yarning and drinking. He beckoned to his henchman and Gwyn rather reluctantly drained the remaining pint of ale in his quart pot and followed him out into the street. It was still only early evening and there would be full daylight for several more hours.

‘I have a fancy to take a look at the house where that fellow was killed,’ he announced, setting off towards Tothill Street.

‘I thought you had given up that matter, Crowner?’ grumbled his officer. ‘The body has long gone, so what are we seeking?’

De Wolfe shrugged as he loped along the street, avoiding the culvert in the middle which carried a sluggish stream of effluent.

‘I don’t know, but if we never look, we’ll never find out!’

Still mystified as to his master’s change of heart, Gwyn ambled along with him. They went partway down Tothill Street, which was behind the abbey, and then up the narrow alley of Duck Lane. The dwellings were meaner here, mostly low shacks of cob and thatch, but a few were two-storeyed and some were built of planks with shingled roofs.

‘How d’you know which one it is?’ asked Gwyn. ‘Even our nosey little clerk didn’t tell us that.’

John promptly demonstrated his method by grabbing one of the ragged urchins who were now following them and impishly imitating his long strides.

‘Where did the blacksmith live, the one who was killed?’ he demanded, holding the boy by his ear. Squealing in exaggerated agony, the lad pointed up the lane, almost to the end.

‘Where the sign is hanging, sir. Miserable old sod, he was, too!’

John released him with a grin and marched on to the house he indicated, with its rusty trade sign hanging over the door. It was one of the larger dwellings, with an upper storey and tightly shuttered windows facing the lane. The heavy door was similarly tight shut and Gwyn, after a futile push against it with his shoulder, looked enquiringly at the coroner. ‘Now what do we do? Break in?’

‘Around the back, I think! That’s where Thomas said the blood was found.’ He dived down a narrow alley between the house and the smaller cottage next to it and came out in a yard where a few scrawny chickens were pecking around a pile of chopped firewood. They found little sustenance there on the bare beaten earth, but the dilapidated fence allowed them to roam out on to the marshes, which stretched away into the distance. A privy, a store-shed full of iron rods and what was presumably a kitchen hut were the only structures in the yard, but near the back door was evidence of the violent crime that must have been perpetrated the previous night. A patch of earth a yard across was stained a dull red and although this had soaked into the soil, there were still a few small areas of dried blood in the centre.

‘Must have lost a lot,’ observed Gwyn. ‘Though from what we saw of the state of the corpse, it’s not surprising.’

De Wolfe grunted and turned his attention to the door. Unlike the front entrance, this was a flimsy collection of thin planks with no lock. After giving it an experimental shake, John put his eye to the crack and saw a wooden bar on the inside. He gave a nod to his officer and Gwyn almost casually lifted a large foot and with a single blow, the door flew open, the socket holding the bar flying off the doorpost.

‘That bloody sheriff would probably have us both hanged for this, if he knew,’ he chuckled.

‘I doubt he’ll ever bother to come back here,’replied John, as he went into the house. The back room was a large workshop and forge, a stone chimney going up through the roof. The furnace was cold and the large bellows silent. Although there was an anvil in the centre, much of the dead man’s labours seemed to be on a smaller scale, carried out on several workbenches of grey slate.

‘What sort of blacksmith was he, I wonder?’ asked Gwyn. ‘He doesn’t seem to make ploughshares or mend wagon tyres.’

The answer came when they moved into the other room at the front of the house, which seemed to be both another workshop for finer details and a place to display and sell his wares. Several tables were littered with wrought-iron candlesticks, sconces, brackets of various types, doorhandles, locks, hinges and a host of smaller items fashioned from metal.

Gwyn picked up several and examined them closely. ‘This is fine work, he seems more of an artist than an ironsmith.’

De Wolfe was looking at the confused array of objects on the workbenches. This was obviously where Osbert Morel made his masterpieces, as many were half-finished, lying amongst discarded tools and pieces of raw iron. Several vices were attached to the benches and scraps of metal and a dusting of grey filings and scurf lay over everything.

‘Not a tidy craftsman, but he was seemingly a talented one,’ observed John, as he picked up a few objects and laid them down again. Some were unidentifiable and he turned them over with his fingers, trying to puzzle out what they were, such as a foot-long rod, engraved with marks an inch apart. Another was a small wooden box the length of a hand, which was full of what appeared to be either soap or firm grease. He was just about to pass this to Gwyn for comment, when a voice came from the open doorway.

‘Who the devil are you – and what are you doing?’

De Wolfe turned to see a man in his twenties scowling at them suspiciously. He was dressed in a plain brown tunic and breeches and John guessed that he might be a journeyman in some craft. He had sandy hair and a round, open face, though at the moment that conveyed nervous indignation.

De Wolfe countered his question with one of his own. ‘And who might you be?’ he snapped. ‘This is the scene of a violent death.’

The younger man flushed. ‘I am all too well aware of that! It was my own father who died!’ Explanations followed and it became evident that the man was Simon, the only son of the slain ironmaster who had been called from the nearby village of Charing, where he lived and worked as a carpenter. Thankfully, Simon did not query why the Coroner of the Verge was involved, even though he disclosed that he had been interrogated by the city sheriff a few hours earlier.

‘I returned to collect some of my father’s tools and to see if there is any good clothing that I should take back to Charing. Once it is known that the house is empty and unguarded, the folk around here will soon pillage anything of value.’

Again, Simon seemed oblivious to the fact that they had burst in through the back door, presumably accepting that a royal law officer had the right to do anything he pleased.