Crowner Royal (Crowner John Mysteries) (33 page)

He bowed his head in greeting as they approached. ‘I trust you are recovered, lady,’ he said stiffly. ‘We heard at supper last evening that you were indisposed.’

Hawise gave him a dazzling smile, which banished any awkwardness that John had feared. ‘I am quite well, Sir John, thank you. My husband has taken me on a trip on the river today, for the fresh air to banish any remnants of my problems.’

John hoped silently that for her sake they had gone upriver, as the Thames was strikingly short of fresh air where it passed through the odorous city.

Out of courtesy, he walked with them across the busy yard towards the main doors into the palace, behind the Great Hall. Renaud was full of the visit of the old queen and of their impending departure for Gloucester. Hawise walked between the two men and was able to give John sultry looks without de Seigneur noticing – or if he did, he chose to ignore them. De Wolfe remained polite but wooden-faced and when they reached the crowded main ground-floor passage, she managed to drop back a little and whisper to him.

‘John, I need you! I’m desperate for your arms, we must meet!’

Thankfully, they were now at the foot of the stairs leading up to his chamber and he adroitly turned sideways on to the lower steps. ‘I trust you will be in the Lesser Hall this evening,’ he said in a loud voice and Renaud turned to wave at him. John could not resist winking at Hawise and was rewarded with a brilliant smile. His feet seemed lighter as he climbed the stairs, but again, that cautious voice deep within him told him not to be such a silly old fool.

At supper that evening, all the usual patrons were there, except for a few like Aubrey, who had gone off to Portsmouth. The lesson and grace were said by another priest, so Bernard de Montfort sat with them from the start. Renaud plodded in ahead of his wife, who had dressed herself with even greater care to enhance her undoubted beauty, her glossy hair encased in silvered crespines. John was sandwiched between the archdeacon and Ranulf, so she had to sit opposite with her husband, unable to press her shapely thigh against John’s.

A somewhat uninspired potage of leeks, beans and oatmeal was followed by a choice of boiled fowl, roast partridge and eels to lay on their trenchers. All through the meal, Hawise covertly made ‘cow’s eyes’ at John, raising her long lashes with her head demurely lowered, but he resolutely declined to respond and carried on with whatever conversation was in progress. Much of the talk was as usual about Eleanor’s arrival, though the subject of Canon Basset’s sudden demise cropped up again. Most of them knew him, as he had often supped in the hall when business kept him late at the Exchequer. They all knew the meagre facts divulged at the short inquest and were eager for more details from ‘the horse’s mouth’, the nag in question being John de Wolfe.

‘I cannot credit the fact that he was murdered,’ said de Montfort. ‘Though I cannot deny the verdict of your jury, Sir John, I feel sure there must be some other explanation.’

De Wolfe shook his head emphatically. ‘There can be no other explanation, I fear. The canon certainly did not kill himself, both the obvious facts against that and others that I cannot divulge make suicide an impossibility. And to suggest accidental foxglove poisoning in the centre of London is equally untenable!’

‘Facts you cannot divulge!’ trilled Hawise excitedly. ‘You are a man of mystery, coroner, but surely you can give us some hint as to what they may be?’

‘Sir John is a law officer, my dear,’ said Renaud. ‘You must not press him further.’

De Wolfe would not have been averse to being pressed by the delectable Hawise, but this was not the time or place.

‘No doubt our coroner’s reticence is related to the notorious theft of that gold,’ suggested the archdeacon, leaning forward to spear a small partridge and place it on the slab of bread in front of him. ‘It surely can be no coincidence that after a long and blameless life, Simon Basset’s death took place within days of an audacious crime, in which, inevitably, he must have been a suspect.’

There was a silence in which his listeners looked at each other uneasily. Though what Bernard had said was what all of them must have considered, no one had voiced it so outspokenly.

‘We cannot even hint at guilt in such a pious and upright man,’ said Renaud severely, though he could not have been acquainted with the canon for more than a few weeks.

‘A hell of a coincidence, though!’ muttered Ranulf, half to himself. The discussion went back and forth for a time, but covering the same ground that John and his two assistants had ploughed endlessly these past few days. Eventually, de Wolfe turned to another killing, this time intent on dropping some misinformation into the Westminster gossip machine, to see if anything was flushed out.

‘Talking of murder, I have had some intelligence that throws light on the death of that unfortunate clerk in your guest chambers, de Seigneur!’ he said casually. ‘Again, I cannot reveal its nature, but it gives me hope of soon being able to unmask the villain who was responsible.’

This set off another round of questions and pleas for more enlightenment, which John resisted easily, as in truth he had no information to provide. The parchment which Robin Byard had found was of no use without either an interpretation of its meaning or some clue as to who wrote it. Hawise d’Ayncourt was again giving her performance of hero-worship as she gave John looks of melting adoration and, in spite of himself, he could not avoid enjoying the sensation, even with her husband sitting almost within arm’s length. But wisely, he sat firmly on his bench until after Renaud had finished his meal and dragged Hawise off to their quarters, avoiding any dallying and possible embarrassment outside the hall.

He stayed on with the men from the Marshalsea and Bernard de Montfort, taking their time over the ale and remaining wine. They talked again about the imminent arrival of Queen Eleanor.

‘So she should be here within a few days, you think?’ asked Bernard. ‘I would have thought that the Justiciar would have gone to Portsmouth to escort her here himself.’

Martin Stanford, the most senior of the marshals, shook his head. ‘It was mooted, but Hubert Walter decided that he had more pressing business here – and, anyway, she will be accompanied from Normandy by William Marshal himself, who is almost the equal of the Justiciar in rank.’

The doughty old Marshal, who had already served two kings, was well known to de Wolfe, both from campaigns and even a visit to Devon not long ago. John was reminded that William’s main possession was Chepstow Castle, very near where Nesta had returned with her new husband.

He pulled his attention back to the Deputy Marshal, who was still speaking. ‘… so a welcoming party will be sent out to meet the cavalcade from Portsmouth and escort it back to Westminster. Many of the members of the Royal Council will form part of it and I think Hubert will want you included, de Wolfe, as Coroner of the Verge.’

John nodded, he was not averse to a ride in the countryside, with all the panoply of a royal procession.

‘Which day will that be?’ he asked.

‘I have fast riders coming ahead to warn me,’ replied Martin Stanford. ‘Probably by Tuesday, but we will have sufficient notice to get ready.’

By now, John reckoned that Hawise and her husband would be safely lodged in their rooms upstairs, so he could leave without fear of being accosted. He had been hunted by enemies many times during his violent career, but never before by a beautiful woman. The sensation was not altogether unpleasant.

In spite of being harassed by his numerous clerks over the impending visit of his monarch’s mother, Hubert Walter found time next morning to listen to de Wolfe’s update on the missing treasure. Though there was not a trace of it to be found, the Justiciar agreed that the news of Simon Basset’s murder was very relevant to the crime.

‘It can surely be no coincidence that he is slain so soon after this infamous robbery,’ he exclaimed. ‘But what is the significance of it, John?’ He sat behind his table and drummed his fingers on the wood, a sign of the strain that running England for the Lionheart was putting upon him. Over the previous twenty-four months to April that year, he had dispatched well over a million marks of silver to the king in Rouen, squeezed from the country by every means he could devise. Though the loss of nine hundred pounds’ worth of treasure was small in comparison with this, he could ill-afford to lose a single mark, with Richard breathing down his neck for every penny.

The coroner, hunched on a chair in front of the great man, scowled in concentration as he answered Hubert’s question.

‘It seems to mean one of two things, sire. Either the canon came to know or to suspect the identity of the thief and was therefore silenced before he could divulge it … or he was implicated himself and the other conspirators disposed of him in case he was a bad risk.’

The archbishop nodded. ‘And which of those do you favour, de Wolfe?’

John shrugged. ‘I have no means of knowing, sire. There is no real evidence that Basset was involved, as there is no sign of the treasure at his house, after thorough searching.’

‘He could have hidden it elsewhere,’ objected Hubert. ‘In fact, it would be more sensible than leaving incriminating evidence on his own doorstep, with the risk of the servants finding it – unless they too are guilty!’

‘It is possible, though short of burying it in the marshes behind his house, I fail to see where he might have concealed it. I find it hard to contemplate a portly canon going out at dead of night to dig a hole!’

‘Yet he was a surprising man, if you say that it was in a whorehouse in the city that he was taken mortally ill. I would not have expected that of him, though God knows many clerics are wont to relieve their celibacy in that way.’

De Wolfe decided to slant the subject away from the canon’s morals. ‘He was said to have dined with some unknown man shortly before he was poisoned. I wish I knew some way of identifying him, but given our cool relations with the city sheriffs I doubt they would be keen to offer us much help.’

‘As you know, at the moment I am in bad odour with the city fathers myself,’ said Hubert ruefully. ‘But if this mysterious man did poison Basset’s food with foxglove, as the monks claim, then we are back to the two motives you mentioned. For one reason or the other, Canon Simon had become a liability.’

John agreed, but his glum expression betrayed his frustration.

‘But it doesn’t help tell us which of the reasons it was. We need to catch this man and press him in the Tower to loosen his tongue.’ He thought almost nostalgically of Stigand, the evil torturer back in Rougemont Castle in Exeter.

A senior Chancery clerk came to the door and hovered with a sheaf of parchments, doing his best not to glare at de Wolfe for taking up the Justiciar’s valuable time. Hubert took the hint and stood up to end the audience.

‘Keep at it, John! Knowing your tenacity, I’m sure you will get there in the end.’

De Wolfe rose and bowed his head politely, but had one last matter to discuss before he went to the door. He felt in his scrip and took out the scrap of parchment that Robin Byard had found in Basil’s book. He held it out to the Justiciar and explained how it had come into his hands.

‘Perhaps what is written upon it may make sense to someone learned in your service. It seems to refer in some way to the counties of Kent and Sussex. Given the present anxiety along that coast about a possible raid by the French, maybe it is an indication that the fears that the murdered palace officer had about his safety might have been justified.’

Hubert took the scrap and read it, his brow furrowing as he scanned the garbled words and figures. ‘I will give this some thought and pass it to other barons on the council. You are nearer the gossip in the palace than I can ever get, so keep your ears open for any other titbits, John. There are persons around who bear considerable ill-will towards England.’

The coroner pondered this as he walked back towards his dwelling in Long Ditch. There were a number of guests from the continent staying in the palace, apart from those who formed their little supper group. He had met a few of them briefly, as the archdeacon had introduced him to Guy de Bretteville, a nobleman from Anjou, and Peter le Paumer, a knight from Angoulême. Before the situation arose with Hawise, her husband had presented him to a canon from the cathedral in Tours, another minor lord from Artois and an aged physician from Berri. John promptly forgot their names and where they came from.

The political situation in France was so fragmented and shifting that it was hard to know who was for the Norman confederacy or for the small, but powerful central core of France under Philip Augustus, centred on Paris. Though Richard was Duke of Aquitaine, there was constant trouble down there from rebellious barons. He had managed to wean and bribe the princes of Flanders to his side, but elsewhere, fragile truces, marriages of political convenience and untrustworthy pacts between the many small states and counties were confused even more by the battle lines that ebbed and flowed. Though the king was slowly making inroads into the Vexin, north of the Seine, recovering land that had been lost by the treachery and foolishness of his brother John, there was still a strong French presence in the north-east, which posed a danger to the southern corner of England. It was impossible to know where the sympathies of some of these cross-Channel guests lay – and even some English lords and barons held covert allegiance to John, Count of Mortain.

He continued to ponder these matters sitting silently with Gwyn, as they ate their dinner in the house. Osanna served them rabbit stew, then salt cod with onions, carrots and cabbage, followed by bread and cheese. She seemed to have a limited range of dishes in her culinary repertoire, but both these seasoned old warriors were not that particular about what they ate, quantity often being of greater importance than quality.