Crowner's Quest (23 page)

John de Alencon agreed. ‘And he insisted on reinstating that damned Walter Longchamp as Chancellor, a man everyone hates – though, thank God, he stays out of England with the King. All these things foster discontent. Our good Richard is too soft-hearted, except on the battlefield. Look how he forgave his brother for all the harm he did. Other kings would have had his head or his eyes for much lesser treason.’

They fell silent again. ‘And none of this helps us solve our local problems,’ sighed the Archdeacon. ‘Who killed poor Robert de Hane and William Fitzhamon? Maybe they have no connection whatsoever.’

‘And we still have no clue as to the whereabouts of this treasure, if it still exists,’ said de Wolfe glumly. ‘Thomas de Peyne has found no sign of that second parchment in the archives.’

‘I care little for treasure – the Church in Exeter hardly lacks for money, though it becomes increasing difficult to resist the King’s calls for donations.’

The coroner stood up, ready to leave. ‘With the sheriff unwilling to apply the law, for reasons of his own, I have a good mind to apply my own brand of justice,’ he said, and with this cryptic remark he left the Archdeacon to his reading. Once again, he did not make for Nesta’s tavern but went further down the close to the canon’s house, where Thomas had his meagre lodging. Going down the side lane to the yard, he ordered a surprised servant, cooking in the light of an open fire in the kitchen, to find his clerk and send him out.

A moment later, a dishevelled Thomas appeared, looking as if he had just risen from his mattress. ‘Throw a cloak about you and go up to Rougemont to find Gwyn. He will probably be drinking with Gabriel in the soldiers’ quarters. Then bring him down to the Bush, where I will be waiting.’ He turned on his heel but, as an afterthought, he called over his shoulder, ‘And tell him to buckle on his sword!’

It was an hour to midnight when the coroner’s team arrived outside the Saracen Inn on Stepcote Hill. It was round the corner from the Bush, on a steep slope leading down towards the city’s west wall. A thatched roof came down to head height on the outer walls, pierced by shuttered windows and a low door from which came the grumble of voices and the occasional shout and peal of laughter.

The trio stood to confer under the crude painting of a Moorish head, the inn sign of the Saracen.

‘He doesn’t know you by sight, Thomas, so go in and look around,’ commanded de Wolfe. He was wearing a wide-brimmed black pilgrim’s hat and had his dark cloak pulled up high over his shoulders, but his height and his hunched posture made this token disguise of little value in a city where he was so well known. Gwyn gave the clerk a shove through the half-opened door. ‘Go ahead, and act the hero for once!’

De Peyne vanished, and the other two walked round the corner of the building to be out of the way, but within a minute Thomas was back again. ‘He’s there, laughing and drinking, though he’s got one arm in a cloth tied up to his neck. That black-haired woman is with him.’

De Wolfe was satisfied that his guess had turned out to be right. Giles Fulford was banking on the reluctance of the sheriff to hold him prisoner, and risked appearing in public, until the city gates opened next morning. ‘You know what to say, Thomas,’ he said. ‘We discussed it in the Bush just now.’ Again the timid clerk, torn between fear and glory, slid into the tavern and pushed his way to the middle of the big smoky room where de Braose’s squire, one arm in a cloth sling, was holding forth to a group of men clustered around Rosamunde of Rye. Thomas’s tongue ran furtively around his lips as his eyes fell on her, and he imagined what it might be like to bed her. He had about as much chance of that as becoming the Pope, though, when his poor body was compared with hers. Boldly dressed in blue silk, with her glossy black hair rippling down her back, she stood with Fulford’s sound arm firmly wrapped around her shoulders, another man alongside her doing his best to press himself against her.

Thomas tore his eyes reluctantly from her to get on with his business. Sidling up to the squire, he nudged him, and when Fulford looked down in annoyance, he said, ‘A man outside asked me to give you a message, if you are Giles Fulford.’

Fulford was more interested in cupping Rosamunde’s left breast, and snapped, ‘What man? What message?’

Thomas, almost enjoying his acting role now, shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He looked like a priest, but muffled up. He gave me a ha’penny to tell you he doesn’t want to show himself in here but that you might be interested in a lost parchment.’

Giles pulled away from the woman. ‘If it’s Langton, I’ll kill him, the treacherous bastard, leading me into a trap like that,’ he snarled. ‘Where is he?’

‘Around the corner of the inn, on the right,’ offered Thomas and, as Fulford stalked to the door, he melted away to the back of the room where another exit was frequently used by patrons who wished to relieve themselves in the yard.

He ran round the back of the inn and, from a safe distance, was just in time to see a scuffle in the half-darkness, lit only by the intermittent light of the moon and a glow from the cracks in the shutters. Hesitantly, he came nearer and saw that Gwyn had Fulford pinned against the wall, with the edge of his sword across his throat.

The coroner had the wrist of the man’s uninjured arm in the iron grip of one hand while the other brandished a dagger that he had plucked from the squire’s belt. ‘Come on, my lad, you won’t escape from us as easily as you did from the sheriff,’ grated the coroner. With that, Gwyn spun Fulford round, put his head in an arm-lock and lifted him off the floor as easily as if he had been a sack of turnips.

Fulford was unable to speak or shout as the coroner’s officer half carried, half dragged him up the hill. He began to kick the Cornishman’s legs, but de Wolfe produced a short hempen rope from under his cloak, which he had borrowed from Edwin at the Bush. He quickly lashed this round the prisoner’s shins and tied a knot, then used the free end to carry the bottom half of Fulford clear of the ground.

They hurried him up the hill and turned right into Idle Lane. Beyond the Bush was a patch of wasteland, with winter-dead weeds and, at its edge, a trough, a long stone bath hollowed out for watering horses. Diagonally opposite was a livery stable: now shut for the night, a pitch flare still guttered on its wall, throwing a dim, flickering light over the area. Gwyn dumped his burden flat on the ground and stood over Fulford with the point of his sword resting on the man’s throat. With one arm bound in a hessian sling and his legs tied together, the squire was as helpless as a trussed chicken.

‘Yell as much as you like,’ invited de Wolfe. ‘The folk in the Bush have been told to take no notice.’

‘You’re mad!’ croaked the squire, his blond hair tousled and his tunic crumpled from the struggle. ‘The sheriff will have you hanged – and if he doesn’t, there are a dozen others who will do it for him.’

The coroner stared down at him calmly in the faint light. ‘You are of little account, Fulford. A squire, a mere hand-servant to a minor knight. Who cares about you? The sheriff only wants to get you off his hands, he’s not concerned whether you live or die as long as you don’t do it on his premises.’

‘What do you want from me?’

A half-moon slid out from behind the clouds and its pale light fell on the scene. Thomas shivered, reminded of a miracle play depicting the angels of doom hovering over a sinner.

‘Who killed Canon de Hane? Who killed William Fitzhamon? Who is employing your master Jocelin de Braose? That will do for a start.’

A stream of foul language and abuse was the response so Gwyn kicked Giles in the ribs to end the flow. ‘I thought this was about a search for treasure,’ gasped the squire.

‘The death of an inoffensive old priest is about treasure,’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘Now, talk or face the consequences.’

Again there was a tirade of denial, mixed with blasphemies and threats of vengeance. De Wolfe stepped to the horse-trough and looked down at the layer of ice on the water. ‘Thomas, get a stone from the waste and crack this up.’

In a moment, black water was glistening in the trough, with angular pieces of ice floating on top.

Without further orders, Gwyn dropped his sword and bent over Fulford. With one ham-sized hand grasping a knot of clothing at his throat and the other gripping the rope around his legs, he lifted the victim up and dumped him into the filthy water. His face was still above the surface and yells and oaths rent the night air, but his tormentors were unmoved.

‘Did you kill the canon?’ snarled the coroner. The foul language continued and, at a nod from his master, Gwyn pushed Fulford’s head under the water and held it there as the man thrashed about, bubbles bursting from above his face. Then he hauled him above the water and waited for the coughing and spluttering to subside.

‘Who killed Robert de Hane and Fitzhamon?’ asked de Wolfe relentlessly. He was no sadist, but the image of the old canon revolving slowly at the end of a cord in his own privy hardened his heart, as did the recent memory of the boy Fitzhamon standing over his father’s body.

It took two more dunkings before Fulford broke, by which time he had inhaled enough water and shreds of sodden hay fallen from horses’ mouths to render him semi-conscious.

He was freezing and shivering and Gwyn was afraid that he might die before his determination cracked, but he was young and strong enough to survive. When he had recovered sufficiently to speak through chattering teeth, de Wolfe waved Thomas close to act as a third witness; later he must write it down from memory on his parchment rolls.

The gasped confessions were short and fragmented. When Fulford was quiet, de Wolfe stood back. ‘He’s no use to us now. Take him back to the Saracen and toss him through the door. Let his friends there warm him up, I’ll not have the Bush fouled by such as he.’

It was well after midnight by the time de Wolfe and Gwyn walked back up the steep slope of the drawbridge of Rougemont. The clouds had cleared to allow the week-old moon to shine unfettered and the high, rounded archway of the gatehouse gleamed against the dark masonry. A shivering soldier lurked in the doorway of the guardroom, wishing himself under his bed-rugs in the arms of his wife.

‘You go off to your palliasse, Gwyn. There’s no need for us both to lose more sleep,’ growled the coroner. He made off across the inner bailey towards the keep, while his officer trudged to one of the bastion towers in the wall where a dozen men-at-arms slept in the lowest chamber.

Another sleepy guard jerked himself awake at the entrance to the keep, wondering what had brought the coroner to disturb the Sheriff at this time of night.

A dozen servants and assorted lodgers were sleeping in the hall, wrapped in their blankets around the smouldering fire, though one man was still eating and drinking at a table with a tiny tallow dip for light.

De Wolfe ignored him and walked heavily into the sheriff’s chamber, where de Revelle’s steward was snoring on a mattress in the corner. The sheriff’s bedroom was through an inner door, but de Wolfe made no effort to wake the servant or to tap on the panels. He pushed it open and walked in, indifferent to what he might find. Unlike the previous occasion when he had found Richard in this same bed with a whore, his brother-in-law was alone.

John unceremoniously kicked the corner of the low bed. The snores changed into a strangled grunt and the sheriff sat up, wild-eyed and confused. ‘Who’s there? Steward?’ he called.

‘Not your steward, it’s the
King’s
coroner.’ He deliberately emphasised the word ‘king’. Richard struggled up to a full sitting position, his nightshirt falling off one shoulder. ‘What the hell do you want, John, in the middle of the night? Have you at last gone really mad?’

A candle-stump was still burning on a side table. De Wolfe went across to it and lit another from its flame, to give a little more light. ‘I’ve just had a conversation with your friend Giles Fulford. He has told me a few interesting things, in front of two witnesses, one of whom is now committing it all to writing.’

The sheriff’s eyes were two shining beads in the candlelight. ‘Fulford? Are you still obsessed with that fellow? I thought he would have gone back to his master by now.’

‘Not until the gates open, Richard. You should have thought of that when you let him go. Anyway, he kindly informed me that he was present when Jocelin de Braose strangled Canon Robert de Hane. He helped string the poor man up to his privy roof.’

De Revelle had recovered enough of his wits to start to bluster. ‘And you woke me just to tell me this nonsense? Why should he confess this to you?’

‘Because Gwyn of Polruan put him to the
peine et forte dure
in a horse trough in Idle Lane. It’s a well-known method of arriving at the truth – one often employed by you, as I recollect.’

The sheriff was back to full consciousness. ‘Torture! Are you expecting me to accept anything obtained under such duress?’

‘It was good enough for you a few weeks ago when you pressed that silversmith to confess to rape. What’s wrong with it now, that you want to reject it?’

De Revelle struggled out of the low bed and stood up, pulling a blanket around his shoulders. ‘You’ve totally lost your senses, John! I hereby relieve you of the writ of coroner. Go home and take some physic for your fevered brain.’

De Wolfe sat calmly in a folding chair in the middle of the room, one with a curved leather seat and back. ‘Don’t be so stupid, Richard. My writ from the burgesses was confirmed by the Chief Justiciar and the Chancellor. You have no say in the matter. Good God, man, we were appointed partly to keep you sheriffs in check, so you have no authority over us whatsoever.’ He held up a restraining hand in the gloom, as de Revelle was about to launch into another tirade of abuse. ‘Fulford also told me that de Braose was at Totnes on the day when Fitzhamon was killed. I suspect he had a hand in that too, but it was what he said about you that really interested me.’

De Revelle’s mouth, which had been open to rail and rant, shut abruptly. Then he spoke almost quietly. ‘What did he say about me? I know nothing about the death of that old priest in the Close.’