Crowner's Quest

by Bernard Knight

  ‘Are you a thief who tries to sneak into my house unobserved?’ came a voice from behind him.

  He swung round and a smile of pure pleasure transformed his usually sombre features. An attractive lady was standing there, having slipped out of the front door and followed him round. ‘Hilda! By God, you look more lovely every time I see you.’ The sincerity of his greeting brought colour to her cheeks and she stepped forward to kiss his lips. Her oval face was made brilliant by two large blue eyes and a full red mouth, but her glory was the cascade of pale blonde hair that fell below her shoulders. The usual cover-chief of white linen was absent and her long neck was bare of any wimple, though it carried a heavy-linked gold chain. She wore a simple kirtle of cream linen with blue embroidery around the high neck-line. A blue cord was wound twice around her waist, the long tasselled ends falling almost to her feet.

  She linked her arm in his and pulled him towards the gate into the yard. ‘You may as well come in by the servant’s entrance, if you were so reluctant to use the front door,’ she teased.

  ‘I couldn’t see Thorgils’ boat in the river, but he might have changed it, for all I knew,’ he explained sheepishly.

  As they made for the back door, she told him that her husband was away. ‘As usual, so I see him about one day in twenty. He has taken wool to St Malo and will not be back until next week.’ Probably some of my own wool, thought de Wolfe, as he had both the partnership with his brother and another with one of the Exeter portreeves, Hugh de Relaga.

  The ground floor of the house, which was large by local standards, was a storeroom for Thorgils’ trade and was piled high with bales, boxes and casks. A girl was searching for something among them, and smiled archly at John and her mistress as they made for the stairs to the upper floor. Hilda gave her a light clip around the ear and ordered her to bring some food from the kitchen for her guest. Grinning even more widely, the girl scuttled out to take the latest gossip to the other servants.

  The upper floor was the living quarters, with a stone chimney, a table and chairs and a sleeping area with a large palliasse covered in sheepskins. The room was warm from a glowing fire and Hilda struggled to pull off John’s cloak and hood. He released his clumsy sword scabbard and dropped the massive weapon with a clang on to the floorboards. He sank down thankfully on the edge of the palliasse and waited for her to pour some wine from a stone bottle into two shallow cups.

  As they drank, the pert serving-maid came carefully up the steep stairs with a board carrying bread, meat and fish. She put it down, then left, and, for the next few minutes, the blonde woman watched him eat, as they caught up with each other’s news.

  De Wolfe had known Hilda since she was a child, as she was the daughter of the former manor reeve in Holcombe. He was eight years older than her, but even before he left home for the wars when he was seventeen, she had been a budding beauty. At every homecoming afterwards they would flirt and by the time she was fifteen they were lovers. Both knew that it would never progress beyond happy tumbles in the hay, as she was from a lowly Saxon family who served the Norman lord of the manor and his family, of which de Wolfe was a member. One day, when John returned from France, he found that Hilda had been married to a much older man, Thorgils the Boatman in nearby Dawlish. She was not unhappy at that: he was a good man with an excellent business who could give her most things in life – this new house was evidence of his prosperity. De Wolfe thought that, years ago, he might have been in love with Hilda, but long separations and her marriage had rendered his feelings to genuine affection and a healthy lust. He suspected that Thorgils knew he was being cuckolded – and maybe by others than himself – but nothing was ever said. Perhaps the sixty-year-old mariner accepted that leaving ashore a beautiful wife half his age carried inevitable risks.

  Hilda poured more wine and sat down next to him on the bed. He told her of the current goings-on and the problems with both the dead canon and the land dispute not far away in Loventor. When he mentioned Giles Fulford, her face darkened. ‘That man and his master – they are a pair of lecherous swine!’

  John looked at her in surprise. ‘You know them?’

  ‘Hardly know them, but they came here some weeks ago, to meet Thorgils’ boat when he returned from Caen. He was two days late because of contrary winds so they stayed in the village. Both of them tried to seduce me – to pass the time, it seemed, even though they had their own doxies with them.’

  ‘What was his master like? You know his name?’

  ‘Of course. It was Jocelin de Braose. Those two were more like brothers than lord and squire. I suspect they took it in turns with the same women. One was a black-haired harlot – Rosamunde of Rye, they called her.’

  ‘What does he look like, this Jocelin?’

  Hilda leaned back to look at him quizzically. ‘Why are you so interested, John? Are you going to challenge them for trying to lie with me?’

  ‘We know this Giles is involved in several dubious escapades, but de Braose is more elusive. What’s he like?’

  ‘Good-looking, I must admit, though he has none of your mature charms, John.’

  He tapped her shapely bottom in rebuke. ‘I asked what he looks like.’

  ‘Red hair – a dark auburn, in curls. Quite a lady’s man, if you fall for that sort of pretty boy.’

  ‘By all accounts he’s pretty handy with a sword. Yesterday I held an inquest on two men he and his friends had hacked to death.’ De Wolfe threw back the rest of his wine. ‘Why should they want to see Thorgils, anyway?’

  She tossed her long hair with an elegant swing of her head. ‘He was bringing half a dozen men from France. They came to meet them from his boat.’

  ‘What sort of men?’

  ‘Soldiers, I’m sure. Not ordinary men-at-arms, but well-dressed, well-armed knights. They were Normans – I mean, men from Normandy itself, for they had not a word of English between them.’

  ‘Has this happened before?’

  ‘Yes, both Thorgils and some of the other boatmen along the coast have been ferrying such men for the past couple of months. I don’t know where they go, but someone brings spare horses for them and they gallop off into the countryside somewhere.’

  She put down her wine cup and snuggled closer to de Wolfe. ‘I’m tired of talking about my husband’s cargoes. Are you only here to spy on me, John, and wheedle out the secrets of Dawlish?’

  He grinned his rare grin again, and held her by the shoulders to look at her smooth, lovely face. A purist might have thought her nose a trifle too long, but for a woman of thirty-two she was as near perfection as any man could want.

  He leaned forward and they kissed again, then slowly slid sideways on top of the sheepskins.

  As Gwyn had predicted, they reached Exeter with little time to spare before the city gates creaked shut. Gwyn carried on outside the walls to reach his hut in St Sidwell’s, while the coroner plodded his tired stallion up to the livery stables in Martin’s Lane. When he had seen Bran safely fed and watered, he walked across to his own house and cautiously entered the hall. There was no sign of Mary to give him early warning of any domestic strife so he had to cross the flagstones to the hearth, where he could see a pair of feet projecting from one of the cowled monks’ chairs.

  ‘You’ve deigned to come home at last, have you?’ a high, hard-edged voice snapped. Matilda was huddled against the draughts with a woollen shawl over her kirtle. ‘You stay away for two days and a night with no message for me whatsoever. How am I supposed to know where you are and when you’ll be back?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ he grunted. ‘You’d never have a meal waiting. If it wasn’t for Mary, I’d starve to death in this miserable house.’

  ‘That’s what serving-girls are for, you fool. Though perhaps you can find other uses for them, that Saxon included!’

  For a moment, he thought she meant Hilda, whom he hoped was still unknown to his wife – but then he realised that her remark had been directed at Mary, whose mother was a native
.

  ‘You’ve been in every tavern in Devon, I suppose, since I last saw you.’

  This rankled with de Wolfe, as he had not set foot in an inn since Christ Mass. ‘I have been to see two dead outlaws, then stayed with my family, held an inquest and then travelled home.’ He reversed the order of the inquest and his visit to Stoke to account for the time spent that day, but whatever he said, Matilda would use it as grounds for complaint.

  She ranted on for a few more minutes, managing to get in a few spiteful remarks about his family, then grudgingly gave him a message. ‘That evil little clerk you employ is sitting in the kitchen, as far as I know. He came here two hours ago, pestering us to know where you were. He says he has an urgent message for you – though what can ever be urgent in your business is quite beyond my understanding.’

  Eager both to escape her and to hear what Thomas de Peyne had to say, de Wolfe loped away to the vestibule and turned down the earth-floored passageway to the backyard. In the lean-to shanty on the left, which was both the kitchen and Mary’s home, he found his crooked clerk perched on a stool. He was eating heartily, for the motherly Mary, suspecting that the little ex-cleric was half-starved, was stuffing him with good food.

  When Thomas saw his master, he gulped the last mouthful and slid off the low stool next to the cooking fire. ‘Crowner, I have some news from the Close. Canon Roger de Limesi’s vicar came to me this afternoon at his master’s behest. The man Fulford has sought Langton, and demanded that he hand over the parchment that reveals the site of the main treasure. He threatens to kill de Limesi if he fails to deliver it. The canon does not know what to do, as he has no such document, as we know.’

  The coroner adjusted his mind to this new and unexpected turn of events. ‘Does the Archdeacon know of this?’

  Thomas nodded. ‘The canon went directly to see him, in fear for his life. I think the Archdeacon is awaiting your return to discuss what is to be done.’

  De Wolfe rasped a hand thoughtfully over his chin, the stubble now well overdue for attention. ‘Go to the Close, arrange for Roger de Limesi and his vicar to attend upon John de Alencon at his house at the seventh hour, then go to the Archdeacon and say that we will all be there at that time.’

  The little clerk hurried away self-importantly, and the coroner turned to Mary, who had been silently listening to these exchanges.

  ‘I’ll have something to eat out here, my girl. The atmosphere in the hall is colder than an easterly gale.’

  He failed to mention that he did not feel like going to the Bush for a meal that night: there, he would have to meet the landlady’s eye after his visit to Dawlish that day.

  The Archdeacon lived in Canons’ Row in the same way as many of his fellow prebendaries. Among the twenty-four priests some had specific appointments and duties, but this gave them no special privileges. There were four archdeacons – John de Alencon for Exeter itself, the others for Cornwall, Totnes and Barnstaple. There were also the Precentor and the Treasurer, but all had similar houses and lifestyles, either in the Close or in houses elsewhere in the city.

  De Alencon, named after the town in Normandy from where his family originated, resided in the second house in the Close from St Martin’s church, almost within a stone’s throw from the coroner’s dwelling. After he had finished a hot, filling meal quickly provided by Mary, de Wolfe had made a token visit to the hall to emphasise to Matilda that he was going out on duty, to meet senior members of her beloved priesthood.

  He walked across to the Close and found Thomas waiting for him, shivering in his thin cloak outside the Archdeacon’s house. Inside, Roger de Limesi and his vicar Eric Langton were already there, both looking subdued and uneasy. Indeed, the canon was afraid for his very life after the murder of de Hane and the threats of Giles Fulford.

  The room in which they met was almost as spartan as Robert de Hane’s bare chamber further down the road. John de Alencon was another austere priest who took the Rule of St Chrodegang literally, as far as worldly goods and comforts were concerned. They sat around a bare table on rough benches, the only light coming from three tallow dips hung on the wall, which also carried a large crucifix.

  ‘We could have this villain seized by the sheriff, I’m sure,’ began de Alencon. ‘Richard de Revelle would be happy to indict him on the sworn evidence of Langton and the canon here. Threatening the life of a man of God – or anyone else – must surely be a hanging matter?’

  Remembering his brother-in-law’s strange attitude to Fulford, de Wolfe was not so sure, but kept his tongue still on that matter. He said, ‘Maybe, but what would it achieve? There is not the slightest proof that he was involved with the death of Robert de Hane, though the circumstances point that way.’

  ‘De Revelle is not noted for his affection for proof,’ said the Archdeacon wryly.

  ‘No, but it would be far better to catch this man red-handed, for it may also trap any associates he may have. His master is a knight called Jocelin de Braose, and I have good reason to think that both of them were involved in some other bloody venture. Maybe this de Braose is in on the treasure hunt as well.’

  ‘So what do we do, John?’ asked de Alencon. ‘We have no map or directions to give him.’

  John looked sideways at his stunted scribe. ‘But we could always manufacture one. How would he know the difference?’

  De Limesi’s small eyes had almost vanished into his podgy cheeks. ‘Surely he could tell an ancient parchment from a new one? It’s my life that’s in danger if he suspects he is being hoodwinked.’

  Thomas spoke up. ‘I could use a piece of old parchment taken from some of the blank skins that abound in the archives. I can thin my ink to make it faint like old writing. And remember, he cannot read.’

  ‘So how does he hope to find any treasure, if he cannot decipher the directions?’ asked the Archdeacon, reasonably.

  ‘This vicar will have to translate it for him. Is that what happened last time?’

  Eric Langton nodded. ‘He committed what I said to memory. It was not difficult, only a number of paces and a landmark or two.’

  The coroner looked grimly at him. ‘You’ll have to go with them this time, to interpret the instructions on the spot.’

  As he realised the hazards, the vicar paled. ‘When they find there is no hoard, they will undoubtedly turn nasty,’ he stuttered.

  ‘That can be part of your penance, brother,’ observed de Alencon drily. ‘Albeit a very small part, considering the evil you have done.’

  De Wolfe brought the meeting back to practical matters. ‘My clerk will produce a false parchment. Thomas, it should have complicated instructions, so that Langton will inevitably have to go with Fulford to translate them. Otherwise, we have no means of knowing when they will attempt to recover the treasure.’

  He looked at John de Alencon. ‘We need to ambush these fellows and catch them in the act. For several reasons, I do not wish to involve the sheriff at this stage. Afterwards though he will need to take into custody any perpetrators.’

  ‘What are you asking, John?’ responded the Archdeacon.

  ‘We don’t know how many adventurers or ruffians Fulford will bring into this escapade. I have only one fighting man to assist me so we need a few strong arms to capture anyone who tries to dig for this treasure. Can you help there?’

  There was some discussion between the two canons, and it was arranged that several of the younger servants from the Close would be recruited, including David from de Hane’s household. Thomas would go straight away that evening to the Chapter House library and write some fictitious account of where the main hoard could be found in the vicinity of Dunsford church. Eric Langton would take this to the Saracen late that evening; if Fulford was not there, he would try again tomorrow, insisting that he had better be present at the digging, to interpret the instructions accurately.

  With much misgiving on the part of both Roger de Limesi and his vicar-choral, the meeting broke up so that the priests could prepare
for their nightly services, and de Wolfe could go home to his frosty welcome at his own fireside.

  CHAPTER SIX

  In which Crowner John lurks behind a hedge

  When there was no war, revolt or insurrection in England, the nobility had to find other ways to pass the time and release their aggression. The usual surrogate for armed conflict was hunting, where the urge to kill and maim was transferred from fellow men to animals. In Devon, the wolf, the wild boar, the fox and, above all, the stag were the victims of this pastime, which in the case of some Normans was almost a full-time occupation. The forests were sacrosanct, either to the lord of the honour or to the King, who reserved to himself vast areas for hunting. It might be a capital offence for any commoner to poach on these lands and a complex system existed to protect the hunting by means of verderers and even special courts for the punishment of offenders.

  But on the day before the eve of New Year, the hunting on the lower reaches of the River Dart was untroubled by poachers: a score of the local aristocracy were scouring the heavily wooded valley in pursuit of their sport. The event had been organised by Henri de Nonant, the lord of Totnes, who had invited many of his friends and neighbours to hunt on his lands, as well as in the forest owned by Bernard Cheever and on the estates of other manorial lords whose domains were continuous with theirs.

  De Nonant had started the day with a lavish breakfast for all the hunters in Totnes Castle. A remarkable fortress, it had been built by Juhael soon after the Conquest; hundreds of men had toiled to raise a high mound, on which he built a circular stockade. At one side was a large bailey, itself protected by a deep ditch, the whole edifice looking down on and dominating the little walled town that stretched down to the Dart. To his surprise, as he was not the most sociable of men, Sir William Fitzhamon was one of those invited, though his son was not. Being as fond of chasing the stag as any other man, he accepted the invitation, which had come at short notice the previous day. It was delivered by word of mouth by de Nonant’s bailiffs, who travelled around the district recruiting the guests.