Crowner's Quest

by Bernard Knight

  De Nonant looked dubious. ‘His reeve, who accompanied him on the hunt, is still here, and one of the two men who went with him to find Fitzhamon. The other returned to his village with his own master, I cannot recall who. The only others were our hunting party who went out afterwards, but they could know nothing of the accident. Of those, only myself and Bernard Cheever are still in the castle.’

  De Wolfe sighed, thinking that the King’s Justices who made up the rules for the holding of inquests had little idea of the difficulties of trying to carry out their orders. In a static village, where none of the inhabitants ever went anywhere, it was easy to assemble everyone who might know about a death, but where barons and knights were concerned, with all their equally mobile companions and servants, it was impossible to stick to the letter of the law.

  ‘Well, get everyone who might have even the most remote knowledge of this death together in the bailey as soon as you can. We will have to move the corpse out there. Then you, Robert, can arrange for a litter to take it to your home.’

  The younger Fitzhamon came to life. ‘Is it necessary to parade my father’s body outside in the bailey, Crowner? Can he not rest here in peace and dignity until I can make arrangements for travel?’

  De Wolfe shook his head, but spoke gently. ‘I’m sorry, the jury must be able to inspect the body and see the wounds before we can reach a verdict. It will be very brief.’ He turned again to de Nonant. ‘I need to see where this happened. Can someone take us to the spot?’

  The best person to do so was Ansgot, the dead man’s reeve, and within minutes he was riding once again along the route he had taken two days before, followed now by de Wolfe, Robert Fitzhamon and Gwyn. They crossed the river and came to the place where the body had been found. He pointed to a place behind dead ferns where the frosted grass had been trampled by many feet. ‘He was there, Crowner, lying crumpled on the ground, face down, chin tucked hard against his chest.’

  De Wolfe examined the spot, but found nothing of any significance.

  ‘What about this tree?’ he snapped. Ansgot walked a few paces back the way they had come and pointed up to an old oak, twisted and gnarled, its bare branches contorted into a variety of shapes. ‘This one here. It has blood upon it where a piece of bark is missing.’

  Gwyn walked his mare up to the tree and, the tallest man there, measured his head against its height. ‘True, it comes to my face. Fitzhamon was shorter than me, so he could have struck it with his crown.’

  Robert looked away in distress. To be where his father had met his death so recently was harrowing to the boy, who had loved and respected his father, even though he had been a stern and undemonstrative parent.

  De Wolfe moved to Gwyn’s side and looked up at the offending branch. ‘There’s a smear of blood upon it – and a sliver of bark is missing at that point,’ he conceded.

  Gwyn was silent and de Wolfe looked sharply at him. Even though the Cornishman had not said a word, after years in his company the coroner could sense that he was not satisfied. ‘Well, what’s the problem?’ he muttered.

  Gwyn raised his bushy eyebrows and looked pointedly towards Robert. ‘I want to look at the body again,’ he murmured, through his moustache. ‘Look at the direction this branch grows – across the track, not in line with it.’

  De Wolfe took the hint and they rode back to the castle, the subdued boy following in the rear.

  In the bailey, Fitzhamon’s corpse had been brought down, still covered with the white cloth, and placed on two boards on trestles from the hall. A dozen people were assembled for the inquest, and young Fitzhamon, de Nonant, Bernard Cheever and Ansgot joined the circle around the bier. Before they began, Gwyn went with the coroner to the body. They lifted the sheet and spent a few moments in muttered conversation. Those nearest saw Gwyn again put a finger and thumb into the wound and show some tiny object to de Wolfe. They also looked long and hard at both sides of the head, turning it this way and that on the floppy neck. Then the officer stood back and called for silence for the King’s coroner, who took over the proceedings.

  ‘All here know the deceased for Sir William Fitzhamon but, for formality’s sake, I will have this confirmed by his son and heir. Robert Fitzhamon, is this the body of your father?’

  Robert assented in a low voice and de Wolfe continued, ‘Equally, we can dispense with presentment of Englishry, as Fitzhamon’s Norman blood is known far and wide.’

  At this point Henry de Nonant interrupted, in a tone of bored impatience, ‘Is there any need for this charade, Crowner? We are all aware that presentment was intended to discourage the assassination of our Norman forebears by treacherous natives. It is surely outdated now, but it can never have made sense in hunting accidents among Norman companions anyway.’

  De Wolfe glared at him, the corners of his mouth downturned in his mournful face. ‘Your sense of history may be correct in that strife between Saxon and Norman has all but vanished – but assassination is still with us. And I have good reason to believe that this is what has happened to William Fitzhamon.’

  He tried to explain it to Richard de Revelle that evening, but with little success, as there is no one as deaf as those who do not wish to listen. ‘It is a murder, carefully designed to look like an accident.’

  The sheriff, leaning back in his chair behind the document-strewn table, was derisive. ‘John, you see deception and conspiracy behind everything! I still question whether the death of that canon was anything other than suicide, in spite of your protestations. Now you come with this fanciful tale of murder, when it is patently obvious that the damned fellow fell from his horse!’

  In an effort to keep his temper, the coroner marched around the chamber in Rougemont’s keep. ‘For the last time, will you just listen? First, someone deliberately put a knife across the fetlock of the reeve’s horse so that Fitzhamon was left alone on the hunt. Then he was found dead, with a head wound and a broken neck.’

  ‘What do you expect on a man who rides his head into a tree and gets tossed off on to the frosty earth?’ snapped de Revelle.

  ‘Great God! I’ve told you already, he didn’t ride into that tree. The wound went from back to front, but the branch and its conveniently bloody part ran across the track, so the wound was at right angles to where it should have been!’

  De Revelle made a noise redolent with scorn at the coroner’s deductions, but John ploughed on. ‘Furthermore, the tree was an oak and my officer picked a piece of beech bark out of Fitzhamon’s head wound. Does beech bark grow on an oak tree?’

  The sheriff made another dismissive noise. ‘A trivial matter. Who ever heard of evidence from a scrap of wood? There was blood on the tree, wasn’t there?’

  ‘No doubt from someone who dipped his finger in Fitzhamon’s blood and smeared it on the place where he pulled off a sliver of bark – oak bark!’

  ‘Fantasy, John, sheer fantasy! I think it was a mistake, my recommending you for this coroner’s appointment, you have too vivid an imagination for sober legal purposes.’

  De Wolfe became more incensed than ever. ‘Recommended me? I was given this job by the Chief Justiciar – and with King Richard’s agreement! I needed no help from you, Sheriff. Do you need reminding that for certain reasons you were held out of office yourself for many months? You are still on probation now, as far as loyal subjects are concerned.’

  De Revelle became incandescent with rage and leaped to his feet. ‘You may not talk to a sheriff in that way, damn you! You meddle in things that are beyond your understanding. Fitzhamon died in a hunting accident, understand? Leave it at that.’

  ‘He was struck on the head with a beech bough, brother-in-law. How do you explain that?’

  ‘His neck was broken, too. How do you explain that?’

  De Wolfe leaned on the table and glared into his brother-in-law’s face. ‘By someone taking his head in their hands when he was unconscious from the blow and wrenching his neck till it snapped!’

  ‘Pah! More fantas
y?’ yelled de Revelle.

  ‘No, marks on each side of his head! When we returned from the forest, enough time had elapsed for the bruising to come out on the side of his neck, behind the ears and on the temples where strong fingers had dug into the skin. Do you get fingermarks, identical on each side, from hitting a tree, eh?’

  Though he had no rational explanation, de Revelle engaged in a repetitious tirade against the coroner’s sanity, which left de Wolfe unmoved. ‘So what are you going to do about this murder?’ he demanded.

  ‘Do? I’m going to do nothing. There is no murder, you great fool.’

  Seeing that it was useless to continue arguing, de Wolfe contented himself with an oblique threat. ‘Well, his son Robert Fitzhamon now knows his father was killed – and, child though he may still be, he has a fair idea why it happened. When he discovers a possible suspect, he will Appeal him and then you will have to do something. If you don’t, I’ll go with young Fitzhamon to the King’s justices and Hubert Walter. If necessary, we’ll follow the King to France and petition him. There may be aspects of this matter that will bring him back post-haste to England.’

  The sheriff glared at de Wolfe, but there was a shadow of concern, almost of fear, in his eyes. ‘You meddle in things that are outside your competence,’ he hissed, his voice tremulous with anger. ‘Have a care, John.’

  ‘It’s you who should watch where you place your feet, Richard – and your loyalties,’ he replied, taking a blind shot at obscure intrigues of which he could only guess. To further wrongfoot the sheriff, he suddenly changed the subject. ‘To go from one violent death to another, what are you going to do about yesterday’s episode? Unfortunately the prime suspect ran away, but I brought you back one villain, who lies in your gaol below.’

  De Revelle’s temper subsided, to be replaced by a triumphant smirk. ‘I’m afraid he doesn’t, John.’

  The coroner glowered at him suspiciously. ‘What do you mean? I delivered Fulford myself into Stigand’s hands.’

  ‘And I released him today – myself! You had no right or cause to arrest him. You attacked him without warning, killed his servant and chased off his master, who was unarmed.’

  This time, it was the coroner’s turn to explode. ‘Unarmed! Only because I was treading on his bloody sword! And what possessed you to free Fulford? Either he or de Braose killed the canon – or they did it between them.’

  From that moment on, there could be no intelligible exchange between coroner and sheriff. They stood almost nose to nose across the table, yelling recriminations at each other. The man-at-arms guarding the sheriff’s chamber stuck his head round the door, thinking murder might be being done, but when he saw the clamorous tableau, he went back hastily to his post, thinking discretion the better part of valour.

  After a few moments of futile shouting, de Wolfe decided that he was wasting his time and, without another word, stalked out of the room, with de Revelle still shouting insults at his back.

  The coroner’s next port of call was his own house, and by the time he had walked briskly through the cold streets from Rougemont to Martin’s Lane, his anger at the sheriff’s intransigence had faded, to be replaced by a thoughtful consideration of what in God’s name was going on in Devon this New Year. It was becoming obvious that political intrigue was afoot, from the oblique threats of various people, but it was difficult to know who was friend and who was foe.

  When he had talked privately to Robert Fitzhamon after the inquest, the boy seemed hardly surprised that his father had been killed deliberately. He explained to de Wolfe the intentions that the elder William had expressed to Henry de la Pomeroy to seek out the Chief Justiciar if the encroachment on his lands was not halted. ‘I don’t know exactly what had been going on, but in the past few months I gathered that some of the barons and landholding knights had invited my father to join them in some dubious enterprise. He had refused, and as he spoke of this in the same breath as of his loyalty to King Richard, I suspect that some new rebellion was being mooted, which he declined to support.’

  As he pushed open his street door, de Wolfe thought this a possible explanation for the murder, though it seemed somewhat extreme. Brutus heard him arrive and came up the passage from the yard, wagging his tail, followed by Mary with an equally welcoming smile. She helped the coroner pull off his riding boots, then hung his baldric and sword on the hook in the vestibule. Jerking a thumb towards the hall, she made a wry face. ‘You’ll have little joy there tonight, Master Crowner,’ she whispered, ‘so I’ll get you something substantial to eat. At least it will help you to pass the time this evening.’ With that she vanished back to her kitchen and, with a sigh of resignation, John pushed open the inner door to the hall.

  Matilda was in front of the fire as usual, sewing by the light of two tallow lamps on a bracket alongside her chair. She was as uncommunicative as usual, offering nothing but a curt word or two in response to his efforts at conversation.

  Soon Mary brought in a large earthenware pot of mutton stew with root vegetables, and a loaf of hot bread. Silently, Matilda came to the table, and as they ate and drank, de Wolfe made another effort at conversation, telling her again of the murderous death of William Fitzhamon. Finally this struck a spark of interest in her as, almost reluctantly, she gave him a recitation of Fitzhamon’s family connections, who his wife was, how many children he had and more from her compendious store of knowledge of the noble members of Devon society, to which she had an envious yearning to belong.

  De Wolfe briefly had hopes of her coming out of her black mood, but he made a fatal mistake when she asked him whether anyone had been arrested for the crime. ‘No, and your brother won’t accept that it was a murder. He claims it was a simple hunting accident.’

  From there it was all downhill: Matilda worshipped her brother and felt he could do no wrong. She still would not accept that he had been a sympathiser of Prince John in his rebellion, which had ended so ignominiously the year before – even though he had been prevented from taking up the sheriffdom for months after being first appointed, which spoke for itself. ‘If Richard says it was an accident, why should you deny it?’ she snapped, her power of speech returning in full.

  ‘Because I was there, and examined the body, and he was not,’ de Wolfe retorted, stung into more unwise comments by the unfairness of her reasoning. ‘And he has released that Fulford man I arrested yesterday, without any explanation.’

  ‘The sheriff knows more about what goes on in this county than you,’ Matilda declared crossly. She got up and walked back to her chair by the hearth, pointedly turning her back on him and refusing to answer him when he tried to placate her again.

  De Wolfe endured a few minutes more of her sulks, standing by the fire to warm his back, but as she refused even to look up at him when he spoke, he marched to the door, put on his walking shoes and cloak and slammed out of the house. He had intended going out in any event and made his way not to the Bush but to the Archdeacon’s house in the close.

  These were the slack hours before the night-time round of services and John de Alencon was reading a small leatherbound book in his bare room. Dressed in a grey cassock, his thin face looked grave in the light of three candles burning on his table. ‘The Bishop is back and takes a very serious view of the behaviour of both Roger de Limesi and his vicar. He has committed Eric Langton to appear before a Consistory Court next week and is deciding whether to take any action against my brother canon.’

  De Wolfe put in a word for the junior priest, as best he could. ‘He did all that was asked of him in this matter of entrapping Giles Fulford – which also flushed out Jocelin de Braose. But that fool of a sheriff has let Fulford go free and he is at large somewhere in the city, no doubt sheltered by his friends.’

  He then related to de Alencon the events of the past day and the death of Fitzhamon. ‘There is treason abroad, John, I smell it. Have you heard any rumours that might confirm this?’

  The Archdeacon pondered a moment. ‘Ru
mour is the right word, old friend. Nothing tangible, just whispers and hints now and then – but they have been rife ever since the last attempt failed.’

  The coroner shifted uneasily on the stool he had drawn up to the table. ‘Is there anything we should do about this – or anything we can do, with no proof at all?’

  The Archdeacon shook his head slowly. ‘Watch and listen, that is the best course at the moment. You need to be careful, John, your allegiance to the King is well known and may not be to everyone’s taste.’

  ‘You are just as loyal, so what about you?’ objected de Wolfe.

  ‘I have the protection of the Church, but you are out in the harder world.’

  ‘The Church was of little help to Thomas Becket against the secular power,’ said John wryly.

  De Alencon smiled sadly. ‘That was a long time ago and things have changed. But we should reckon up who is likely to be for us and who against.’

  ‘Your own bishop was sympathetic to the rebels last time. How is he placed now, I wonder?’

  The Archdeacon shrugged. ‘I think he will wait to see which way the wind blows strongest. In the last treason, Hugh of Nonant, Bishop of Coventry, was the moving force behind Prince John, but I doubt if our Bishop Henry will wish to follow his example.’ He sighed and closed his book carefully. ‘I find it strange that he leaned that way before, being brother to William the Marshal, who is nothing if not the King’s man.’