The Manor of Death (5 page)

Though he did not admit it, John had to agree that often the inhabitants of one village would drag a dead body across the boundary into another manor to relieve themselves of the problems that a corpse always presented. He grunted, his usual means of expressing his disapproval.

'Then someone here must have had prior knowledge of the corpse - and kept it to himself. I'll have him amerced for that when I find out who it was!'

As he uttered this threat, the Keeper stopped ahead of them and gesticulated, jabbing his arm towards the undergrowth that fronted a wood that lay at the foot of the high ground that was a backdrop to the town. On the other side of the track, the ground dropped away to the edge of the estuary.

'In here, Crowner, a hundred paces further.'

He dived into a patch of bushes and small trees, all greening up with the new growth of an early spring. Trampling primroses and violets, the half-score men plunged into the scrub and stopped alongside de Casewold as his clerk pulled down one of the hurdles of woven hazel withies to reveal a shallow pit.

'Here he is, Sir John! Kept quite intact for you,' he said with the air of someone who was offering a valuable gift.

De Wolfe looked down at the hole, where the gritty soil had been thrown aside to reveal a man's body lying face down in the earth. It was clothed in a leather jerkin rather like Gwyn's and a pair of canvas breeches cut off at mid-calf, with no shoes or cap, the typical wear for a ship's crewman.

'Do we know who he is?' was John's first demand. There was much shaking of heads and muttered denials. Everyone from Axmouth was anxious to keep their distance from any knowledge of this cadaver.

'I lifted his head to see his face when I came back with the Keeper,' said the old priest hesitantly. 'But he's not one of my flock, that's for sure.'

John looked across at Gwyn, who from long experience knew the routine they needed to go through now. The big Cornishman stepped down into the excavation and lifted the corpse as easily as if it was a bag of straw, turning it over on to its back. 'He's a young fellow; I doubt he's reached eighteen summers,' he reported, brushing soil from the face with his fingers.

The coroner stepped down to join him and they both bent over the dead youth, while Thomas de Peyne, whose task was to record the findings, fumbled in his large shoulder bag to make sure he had his pens, ink-flask and parchments. Gwyn muttered something to de Wolfe and pointed to the half-open eyes. John nodded and prised open the lids with fingers and thumbs to examine the whites.

'Spotted with blood!' he bellowed. He turned his head to glare at the bailiff and portreeve accusingly 'So much for your damned drowning!' He picked up a hand and wagged it as if shaking hands with the corpse, determining that there was no death stiffness. Staring at the pads of the fingers and the palm, he shouted again. 'Not a sign of washerwoman's skin. He's not been in the water for long, if at all!'

Meanwhile, Gwyn had been industriously brushing away the remaining dirt from the face and neck, finally cleaning it off with a grubby kerchief that he dragged from a pocket.

'Look at this, Crowner,' he muttered as he gave a last wipe with his rag. John shifted his gaze from the hands and saw that around the front of the neck across the prominence of the Adam's apple was a livid line the width of his little finger. It passed back under the angles of the jaw and disappeared behind the ears.

'Turn him back on to his face!' barked the coroner, and when his officer had done so they looked at the back of the neck. When the skin was wiped clean, they saw that the dark lines, which had chafed the skin into brownish grooves, crossed over each other at the nape of the neck.

'Looks like a thin rope, with a spiral pattern,' observed Gwyn.

Anticipating his master, he turned the body over yet again and they both studied the face. It was in good condition as far as decay was concerned, as though the weather was mild it was still typically April and together with being buried in cold earth no decomposition had yet set in. The face was puffy and reddish-blue with congested blood, especially the lips. More of the tiny pinpoint bleeding spots that John had seen in the eyes were clustered around the mouth and temples.

Experts in modes of death from two decades on the battlefield and eighteen months of dealing with the corpses of Devonshire, the coroner and his officer had no doubt how this young man had died. John looked up at the ring of expectant faces looking down into the grave.

'He was strangled by a rope, held by someone standing behind him!' grated de Wolfe. 'So much for your drowned sailor, portreeve! Keeper, you were right: this is murder!'

Sir Luke de Casewold smiled smugly. 'I knew it from the outset, though the earth prevented me from seeing that strangling mark. But what innocent death ends up in a hole behind a bush, eh?'

De Wolfe rose to his feet, feeling the twinge in his bottom that he had mercifully forgotten for the past few minutes. 'Have you a dead-house or somewhere where we can lay this poor fellow until I hold the inquest?' He directed his question at the whole group of onlookers, but it was the old priest who answered.

'We have a shed in the churchyard where we lay cadavers awaiting burial. Will that suffice, sir?'

Within minutes, a handcart was fetched from the quayside. It stank of fish but was good enough to transport the corpse past the gawping villagers back to St Michael's Church, a sturdy stone edifice that had replaced the earlier wooden chapel of Saxon times. When the body was safely parked in the ramshackle lean-to against the north wall of the building, with a couple of barley sacks thrown over it, John turned to face the men who had trailed behind the cart.

'Now I need to get some sense out of you all!' he rasped, glowering around them, some obviously not disposed to be particularly cooperative.

'What the hell do we know about it?' growled the bailiff. 'He's a stranger here. I've never set eyes upon him before.' Elias Palmer, the lanky portreeve, nodded his agreement, for he seemed to go along with anything Edward Northcote decreed.

'We need to know who he is, as soon as possible,' said de Casewold with an air of authority. 'The coroner here has to enquire into his death without delay.'

Again John was exasperated that the self-important Keeper seemed intent on doing his work for him. 'There are many issues to be settled, apart from his identity, though I admit that is of prior urgency.' He fixed his stony stare on the parish priest. 'Father Henry, you say he is not one of your flock from this village. Have you any other suggestions?'

The cleric rubbed his bald pate as if to stimulate his ancient brain. 'He was buried more than a mile from the river mouth, so is unlikely to have been washed up from the open sea.'

'He showed no signs of being in the water - at least not for more than an hour or two. And he certainly didn't drown!' snapped de Wolfe.

'It suggests that he is from the locality, if he's not a shipwrecked sailor,' mused the priest. 'Yet he wears a seaman's garb'.

Gwyn leant towards his master. 'If he's not from this port, what about those other havens nearby?' he whispered hoarsely.

John nodded at the suggestion. 'What about the village on the other side of the river, almost on the shore?'

The portreeve seemed anxious to keep in favour with all sides of the debate.

'Seaton, you mean, Crowner?' he asked eagerly. 'There are certainly ships and shipmen there, though most are fishermen. He could have come from there, I suppose.'

'And equally from Sidmouth or Budleigh - even from Lyme, in the next county!' countered Northcote, intent on being difficult.

De Wolfe next addressed the Keeper, determined to show him who was in charge here. 'I suggest, Sir Luke, that you send your clerk across the river to enquire if any man has gone missing from there in the past few days. The state of this corpse suggests that he has been dead less than a week, even though cold earth slows down the pace of corruption. '

De Casewold looked slightly affronted at being told what to do by a law officer he considered to be of equal status, but he made no protest and sent Hugh Bogge, with one of the villagers, to find his way across the water to Seaton.

'Meanwhile, I and my officer and clerk need some sustenance after the long ride from Exeter,' declared the coroner. 'Where can we be fed and rested for an hour?'

Normally, a king's officer such as de Wolfe would claim hospitality from the local lord in his castle or manor house - or failing that in an abbey or priory. As Axmouth had none of these, it fell to the bailiff to grudgingly offer his own house for the purpose, rather than suggest one of the many taverns that catered mainly for seafarers. 'I can't offer much. I have no wife to cater for me, only an idle servant,' he warned.

John and his two companions followed him from the church back up the short street that lay within the walls to one of the better buildings in the village. Luke de Casewold attached himself to them without invitation, as did Elias Palmer.

Like most of the other cottages, the bailiff's house was built of cob plastered within stout oak frames, but it was in good condition, with fresh whitewash on the walls and new thatch on the roof. It consisted of one large room, the end partitioned off for his bed, a luxury indicative of his position in the community. In view of the mild weather, only a small fire glowed in the clay-lined pit, ringed with stones, in the centre of the floor. What little smoke there was wafted upwards to find its way out under the eaves, as there was no chimney. No cooking was done here, as there was a separate kitchen-hut behind the house, with a larger fire tended by his servant.

A table with benches and a few stools completed the furniture, except for another long table against the wall which bore tally-sticks and some parchments as well as quill pens and an ink-bottle. These caught Thomas's eye as he entered, as it was unusual to find anyone in a village who was literate, apart from the priest. Edward Northcote noticed the clerk's interest and gruffly explained.

'Elias, my portreeve, uses this room to make his manifests, the lists of cargo going in and out of the port. He's the only man who can read and write, apart from the old priest.'

He waved them to the table, and his servant, a toothless old man with a bad limp, brought in clay cups and a pitcher of ale. While they waited for him to bring some food, John enquired about the port. 'I've not been here before. It seems a busy, thriving place.'

The portreeve hastened to broaden the coroner's knowledge, the pride in his voice being almost proprietorial. 'Axmouth has long been an important harbour, sir. We know that the Romans used it, but doubtless it was known before that.'

As usual, the erudite Thomas could not resist airing his own knowledge. 'Indeed it was! The classical writers tell of Phoenicians sailing here to collect tin, long before the birth of Our Saviour.' He paused to cross himself at the mention of the Holy Name.

The bailiff, his own pride in his little town not to be denied, nodded his agreement. 'It is one of the major ports of England, with its estuary safely tucked under the long headland behind the town. We rarely have fewer than half a score of vessels moored here during the sailing season.'

'What is their main trade, then?' asked John. His interest was not prompted by his role as coroner but as a partner in a wool-exporting business with Hugh de Relaga, one of the portreeves of Exeter. They used the Wharves of that city to send their bales abroad, mainly to Flanders and the Rhine.

The portreeve answered him, a frown on his narrow face. 'On the outward voyages, fine limestone from the quarries of Beer, but mostly wool, Crowner, though this tax that King Richard has imposed has begun to stifle the trade.'

De Wolfe caught a warning glance pass from the bailiff to Elias Palmer and assumed it was a hint that it might be undiplomatic to criticise the monarch in front of two of his law officers.

'And what do they bring in to this place?' asked John. The bailiff shrugged his big shoulders. 'All manner of goods, depending on where they come from. French wine from Barfleur or Bordeaux, dried fruit from France - and of course finished cloth from Flanders or the Rhine.'

John nodded. It was the same with the ships he and his partner employed, though much tin was also exported from Exeter, being one of the smelting and assay towns.

Their talk was interrupted by the old servant bringing in a board bearing a haunch of cold mutton, two loaves, butter and cheese. He set it on the table, and Northcote cut thick slices of meat with his dagger, laying them on the board for the others to take. The portreeve slashed the loaves into quarters, and each man started to eat, picking up the food with their fingers or with small eating knives from the pouches on their belts.

'I live simply,' growled Northcote. 'I have been a widower these past five years and live alone, apart from that old fellow in the kitchen.'

'You keep the records and accounts, bailiff?' ventured Thomas, nodding towards the other table with its parchments and writing materials.

'I am the prior's creature in that respect. He is insistent that everything is properly recorded.' Edward Northcote picked up another piece of mutton and held it before his lips before continuing. 'The portreeve here does most of the organising of the town's trade and deals with the shipmasters, and as I am unlettered he also scribes all the records.'