The Noble Outlaw (36 page)

When John told them of his intention to search for de Arundell, the sheriff offered to send armed men with him. De Wolfe accepted a small escort, as the search would perhaps need to be wide.

'Sergeant Gabriel and a couple of mounted men would suffice,' he said. 'We're not looking to fight anyone, just to discover where the hell he has got to.'

'What's to happen about the Justiciar's decision to right this wrong?' asked the castle constable, twisting his forked beard pugnaciously. 'Are we going to hang those two bastards at long last?'

Henry de Furnellis held up a placatory hand. 'Easy, Ralph! Hubert says that he's sending Walter de Ralegh down to hold a special court to settle the issue. Then you can talk about hanging them.'

The burly constable buried his face in his ale jar.

'Those crafty swine will find some way to wriggle out of it, I'll wager. They've got Prince John and half the bloody clergy on their side.'

After supper that evening, Matilda went off to visit her 'poor relation', a cousin in Fore Street. Although the woman was the contented wife of a thriving merchant, she had been adopted as a charity case by John's overbearing wife, who called upon her at intervals to make sure she was not starving on account of marrying a mere tradesman.

John took the opportunity to 'take the dog for a walk', and although he had already called in at the Bush Inn earlier in the day to make his peace with Nesta, he went down again to Idle Lane as soon as his wife's back was turned.

Sitting at ease at his table near the hearth, he had time to recount all the details of his trip to Winchester and London, places that Nesta had only heard of, as her travels had taken her only between her home in Gwent and the city of Exeter. She was the widow of a Welsh archer who had fought alongside John de Wolfe in several French campaigns. When Meredydd finally hung up his longbow, John suggested that he move to Devon, and with his accumulated loot from fifteen years of fighting he had bought the Bush, then a rundown alehouse. The archer brought his wife from Gwent, and they worked hard to make it successful, but then Meredydd was stricken with a sudden fever and died.

John had helped Nesta financially to keep the tavern going until it finally paid its way again, and in the process, they had become lovers in every sense of the word.

'You are a good man, John,' she said softly, putting a hand affectionately on his arm. 'Going all that way to fight an injustice. And I'm not even jealous, though I'll wager that this Lady Joan is pretty.'

He gave her a crooked grin and squeezed her thigh under the table.

'When was my head ever turned by a pretty face - apart from yours,
cariad
?' he replied in Welsh. 'My main reason was to do down that damned brother-in-law of mine.'
 

The inn was fairly quiet that evening, though Nesta was called away several times by either old Edwin or one of the serving maids to attend to some cooking problem or see to a new arrival who wanted a penny mattress in the loft for the night. When she came back to John after dealing with one such customer, he solemnly placed a penny before her on the table.

'Any chance of me also getting a bed tonight, mistress?' he asked with a straight face.
 

The pert answer she had ready was interrupted by the appearance in front of them of Thomas de Peyne, who had just slunk in through the back door. His natural reluctance to frequent taverns had increased since he had been recently restored to the priesthood, so John knew that he must have something important to tell him. However, this had to wait until Nesta had finished fussing over the clerk, as she was always convinced that he never get enough to eat in his mean lodgings in Priest Street. She went off to order a maid to find him a bowl of stew and a couple of chicken legs, and while she was in the kitchen, Thomas blurted out his news.

'I have been in the Guildhall, as you instructed, Crowner. Their records are in some disorder, but they are all there. I went through the rolls pertaining to the guild of Ironworkers and found that last summer, one of the journeymen was refused advancement because his master-work was deemed insufficient.' The little clerk's pinched face was pink with cold as he wiped a dewdrop from the end of his long nose with the sleeve of his black cassock.

'What was the name of the master who failed him?' asked John tensely, expecting that it might be one of the four dead guildsmen, until he remembered that they were not in the same trade.

'It was John Barlet, the previous warden of the ironmasters,' said Thomas. Deflated, the coroner then recalled that Stephen de Radone had said that his predecessor had died after a fall from a horse - an accident.., or was it? It had not been one of John's inquests, but the man might have died outside south Devon, under the jurisdiction of a different coroner.

But Thomas had by no means finished his tale and as Nesta returned with a cup of wine and slipped back alongside John, he continued.

'The most interesting part, Crowner, is that the journeyman appealed against the decision and it was heard by four senior members of the city guilds - and again rejected.'

John was almost afraid to ask his clerk the names of the adjudicators, but when Thomas delivered them in a dramatic whisper, the coroner slammed his fist on the table and let out a shout that turned every head in the taproom.

'Thomas, you're a bloody genius! We've got him, thanks to you.' Then he glowered at his clerk from under his beetling black brows. 'But you've not yet told me the name of this damned journeyman!' Thomas looked furtively over his shoulder, as if he was about to impart some state secret. 'It was Geoffrey Trove, who works on Exe Island.'

De Wolfe stared at his clerk. The name rang some faint bell in the back of his mind and he struggled to retrieve it. 'Trove? Trove? That name is somehow familiar.'

Then the memory of the meeting in the Guildhall with the members of various guilds came back to him.

He recalled the pompous Benedict de Buttelscumbe who was the convenor and then the general discussion afterwards. Yes, that was it, there was a fellow, a journeyman smith, who had some sarcastic remarks to offer about the failure of the law officers to solve the killings.

The coroner half rose from his bench, as if to dash out and arrest the man at that moment, but Nesta pulled at his sleeve.

'John, it is pitch dark outside,' she scolded. 'These murders have been spread over weeks, so I doubt that waiting until morning will make any difference to your investigation.'

De Wolfe saw the sense in what she said and subsided on to his seat.

'You are right, as usual, woman. But at dawn, I shall visit the warden of the ironworkers and discover what I can about this Geoffrey Trove. And especially where he lives and works.'

And that was the first problem, for Geoffrey Trove was nowhere to be found.

Soon after first light, while Thomas was busy at his devotions in the cathedral, John and his officer were at Stephen de Radone's forge in Smythen Street. When they told him of Thomas's discovery, the warden was aghast.

'Could this really be a motive for murder?' he protested. 'I know this man Trove slightly, he has always been difficult and outspoken in matters concerning our trade - but murder?'

'Is obtaining the rank of a master important?' asked de Wolfe.

'Very much so, especially if a man is ambitious and wishes to set up on his own,' replied Stephen. 'And to have your master-piece rejected once, let alone twice, is indeed a slur on a craftsman's proficiency. It means that he would be condemned to working as a journeyman for ever, certainly in Exeter. His only hope would be to move somewhere far away, where his history is unknown, and to try again.'

The warden told them that Trove worked for an iron founder down on the river, just outside the city on the marshes beyond the West Gate. Plentiful supplies of water flowing along the leets that meandered through the flood plain allowed a number of mills to operate there. Most were fulling mills for the wool industry, but there were also a few iron smelters and founders, who used the power of millwheels to drive bellows and hammers for their metalworking.

The coroner and Gwyn hurried through the early morning crowds thronging the shops and stalls until they emerged through the West Gate. They took Frog Lane across Exe Island, the swampy ground between the city wall and the river, which curved around to the north where many of the mills were situated. Shacks and shanties were dotted around the edges of the leets and streams, always in danger of being flooded or washed away when the Exe flooded after rainstorms up on Exmoor. But today was dry and cold, and they soon reached the mill which Stephen de Radone had described to them.

The place was a hive of activity. Looking into one of the high, open-fronted sheds, John could imagine that he was on the threshold of Hell. Amidst mounds of ore and charcoal, a bulbous furnace was issuing forth a stream of white-hot iron, around which several foundrymen were capering, holding long rods, guiding the liquid metal into stone and clay moulds. Though fascinated by the sight, John tore himself away and found the ironmaster cloistered with a miserable-looking clerk in a hut that served as their office and countinghouse.

John tersely explained their mission to the master, a prosperous-looking man with a large paunch, and a rim of grey beard around his plump face.

'He's gone,' declared the ironmaster. 'Said he was sick, then just walked out two days ago without a word. He always was an awkward fellow, though he worked hard enough.'

'Did you know about his trouble with the guilds?'

'Of course. Mind you, he brought it on himself, he was a cussed individual, wouldn't take advice.' He explained that Geoffrey Trove refused to offer a conventional object as his master-piece, even though he was a competent craftsman.

'Instead of casting an elegant door knocker or forging a handsome dagger, the damned fool insisted on making some strange device. He claimed it was a miniature crossbow that a man could hang from his belt and use to deter robbers.'

John and Gwyn looked at each other on hearing this apparent confirmation that Trove must have been the culprit

'Was he much incensed at his rejection by the guild masters?' asked John.

'Hard to tell, he was such a surly, close-lipped devil.

I wouldn't have thought he would commit murder over it, but you never can tell with these silent ones.'

Further questioning brought out the fact that Geoffrey Trove was unmarried, so far as anyone knew, though he had come several years ago from Bristol as a journey man and no one knew anything of his past history.

'He lived alone in one of those huts on the island,' said the master, waving a podgy, be-ringed hand down towards the distant Exe bridge, still unfinished after several years' construction. 'Don't ask me which one, someone on Frog Lane will tell you. I have to admit that he looked very poorly when he left here.'

'What was wrong with him?' asked de Wolfe.

'God knows, he would rarely give you the time of day.

But he held one arm stiffly and his face was flushed as if he had a fever. I told him to seek an apothecary.'
 

Leaving the master to count his profits with his clerk, the two law officers retraced their steps back across the marshes, shivering as a fresh north wind moaned about them, reminding them that once again, snow might not be all that far away. 'Let's hope it keeps off a bit longer,' grumbled Gwyn, thinking of their proposed search of Dartmoor the next day.

Enquiry led them to a cottage that was larger and more substantial than some of the shacks. It was built on the edge of a muddy channel that had been strengthened by stonework, making the cottage safer than some of the mean huts that were literally sliding into the leets.

It was a square box built of cob on a wooden frame and had a thatched roof in fair condition. There were no windows, but a front and back door of oaken planks.

The back door was barred from inside and the front door had a complicated metal lock.

'Probably made it himself,' observed John, rattling the massive padlock in a futile attempt to shake it open.

They hammered on the doors, getting no response.

Gwyn stood back and studied the door with a critical eye. 'That will take some breaking down. Do you really need to get inside, Crowner?'

John nodded, scowling at the barrier of oak that was frustrating them. 'If that device for shooting iron rods is inside, that would clinch his guilt,' he growled.

'Do you want me to try and smash it open?'
 

John reluctantly shook his head. 'You'd do yourself an injury. There's no great urgency, I'll get Gabriel to bring a couple of men down here later with a length of tree trunk. If there's no answer then, they can batter it open and see if there’s anything incriminating in there.

As they walked back towards the city de Wolfe wondered where Geoffrey Trove might have got to, if he was not in his place of work or at home.

'Let's try St John's Priory, maybe he's sought the ministrations of Brother Saulf in the infirmary, if he really is ill.'

St John's was the only place in Exeter where sick persons could find a bed and have some sympathetic care offered to them. However, this time Brother Sanlf could not help, as no such person as Trove had been to the infirmary and he had never heard of him.