Crowner Royal (Crowner John Mysteries)

by Bernard Knight

  Though corpses were found almost daily in the great river, ones with a tonsure and clerical garb were not that common and a wherryman rowing empty towards the wharf at Baynard’s Castle was intrigued enough to recover the body. He hauled it aboard and had a quick look to see if the fingers bore any rings that could be looted. Disappointed, he fumbled in the leather scrip on the man’s belt and was equally chagrined to find only two silver pence. He had half a mind to throw the corpse back into the water, but being so near the shore, he feared that he might be seen. Reluctantly, he rowed on to the landing stage, where a handful of citizens were waiting, augmented by some loafers who had seen the sodden body sprawled in the flimsy craft. As the cadaver looked fresh and not bloated or stinking, they helped him haul the victim out on to the wharf, where it was laid on the boards.

  ‘It’s a clerk,’ declared an old man, hopping nearby on a crutch. ‘May even be a priest?’

  At this, a portly monk in the white habit of a Cistercian, pushed his way through the small crowd that had gathered and imperiously waved aside the nearest onlookers.

  ‘Keep away, let me see!’ he snapped. ‘If it is one of my brothers, he must be treated with all respect.’

  Bending over the sodden corpse, he looked at the plain cassock and noted the lack of any pectoral cross or beringed fingers. He decided that this was no archdeacon or even vicar, but merely someone in minor orders.

  ‘What’s that embroidered on his front, then?’ asked the man on crutches, whose infirmity obviously did not extend to his eyesight. The Cistercian bent lower and squinted at some unobtrusive embroidery just below the left shoulder. The dark red stitching did not show up well against the soaked black fabric, but now his short-sighted eyes made out three small lions, one above the other.

  ‘This must be a brother in the king’s service!’ he exclaimed, straightening up. ‘Quite probably from Westminster.’

  The boatman nodded sagely. ‘That would fit, for he’s quite fresh, even in this hot weather. So he’s not come far down the river, certainly not from Windsor or Reading.’

  The monk, losing interest now that the dead man was obviously not someone important in the Church hierarchy, stepped back and began moving towards the end of the landing stage, beckoning the boatman to take him across the river.

  ‘Get the poor fellow taken to some shelter out of the sun,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘And tell the watch to notify the palace that it might be a royal servant.’

  As he lowered himself cautiously into the wherry and was rowed off across the wide river, two large men in leather jerkins and serge breeches came striding down to the upper end of the landing stage from Thames Street, which ran along the edge of the river. They carried heavy staves and wooden truncheons hung from their wide belts. Attracted by the small crowd, these were city watchmen, employed by the mayor and aldermen to keep order in the streets. This was easier said than done, as there were only a few dozen of them to control London’s thirty thousand inhabitants. Employed mainly for their brawn, rather than brains, they still managed to cope with this incident efficiently, as they frequently had to deal with ‘drowners’. Taking the brief story from the onlookers, they decided to move the cadaver to the nearest church, as he appeared to be some kind of cleric. However, as they were tipping the corpse on to a barrow commandeered for the purpose, the change in posture caused blood to start leaking through the cassock. The lame onlooker, who was avidly watching the proceedings, was again the first to spot this and he gave a shout of warning.

  ‘Look at that cut in his clothing!’ he yelled. ‘The man’s been stabbed!’

  Everyone crowded around until the watchmen shoved them roughly aside to make sure for themselves.

  ‘God’s guts, this is getting too heavy for us!’ muttered the senior of the pair to his partner. ‘A king’s clerk, murdered and thrown into the river. This is a job for the sheriff’s men!’

  That evening, John de Wolfe decided to eat his supper in the palace, rather than eat alone in the house in Long Ditch. As usual, Thomas was supping in the abbey refectory, where he could converse with his fellow clerics, a pleasure little short of paradise for him after his years in the ecclesiastical wilderness. Gwyn, who was as fond of alehouses as the clerk was of the Church, had gone to his favourite tavern in Thieving Lane, to play dice with new cronies he had made amongst the palace guards.

  In the early evening, John left his bare chamber overlooking the river and went down through the passages to the Lesser Hall, often known as the ‘White Hall’, on the abbey side of the main palace buildings. Although spacious, it was a quarter of the size of William Rufus’s Great Hall and had a beamed ceiling, as there was another floor above it, a dormitory for palace staff. When the king was in residence, he ate there on the raised platform at one end, except when there were major feasts in the Great Hall. It was also occasionally used for meetings, including that of the King’s Council, but at other times the hall provided meals for the middle echelons of the palace inhabitants – the high and mighty, like the Justiciar, Steward, Treasurer, Barons of the Exchequer and the Lord Chamberlain, either lived outside in their own houses or ate in private dining rooms upstairs, adjacent to the royal chambers.

  As John pushed through the heavy curtain over the side entrance, he met a buzz of conversation, punctuated by raucous laughter and the clatter of ale pots and dishes. Unlike the refectory in the nearby abbey, there was no respectful muting of conversation and no verses from the Gospels or the Rule of St Benedict droned continually by a monk at a lectern during the meal, though a grace was always said by one of the priests present.

  A servant near the door offered him a bowl of water and a towel to wash his hands before eating. He looked around at the scene. Two rows of trestle tables ran down the length of the hall and servants were scurrying back and forth from the door to the kitchens that he had seen when he had visited the Chief Purveyor earlier that day. The benches along the tables were occupied by a few score diners and the coroner slid into a vacant place. The meal had already started and grace had been said before his arrival. He found himself between a powerfully built man in a dark-red tunic and a small priest with a completely bald head.

  Almost before he had sat down, a young servant boy placed a pint of ale in a pewter tankard before him and another deftly dropped a trencher on to the scrubbed boards of the table. John grunted a greeting to those on each side and nodded to a man and woman sitting opposite. The priest ignored him, continuing to mumble Latin prayers between sucking at a chicken leg with his toothless gums, but the man on his left, a handsome fellow in his late twenties responded civilly enough.

  ‘You are Sir John de Wolfe, the new law officer, I believe? We heard that the king, God save him, had appointed someone to keep us in order!’

  De Wolfe reached out to spear a large slice of roast pork with the eating knife he kept sheathed on his belt. He placed it on his trencher, along with a liberal covering of fried onions ladled from a pottery bowl.

  ‘I am indeed, though hardly new now, for I’ve been here for well over a month. And I doubt I will be keeping you in order, unless you are dead or suffer severe violence!’ As he attacked the meat with his fingers, his neighbour introduced himself.

  ‘I am Ranulf of Abingdon, a knight from Berkshire. For my sins, I live in the palace as an under-marshal – and have to endure the food in this place almost every day!’

  John raised his ale pot to his new friend and wished him good health. ‘I know your master William the Marshal quite well,’ he added. ‘I served under him in the Holy Land and we met again not long ago when he came as a judge to settle a problem we had in Devon.’

  The great William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, was a legend, both for his prowess as a warrior and his eminence in political matters under several kings.

  ‘He has spoken of you more than once,’ replied Ranulf. ‘I envy the good standing you have not only with the Justiciar and the Marshal, but with the king himself.’

  T
he man opposite leaned forward, just as John was trying to get some food into his mouth. ‘You mentioned Devon, sir. I thought you had an unusual accent. I am from Blois myself, so perhaps I am more sensitive to the different dialects in England.’

  They were speaking Norman-French, as did most people in the palace, above the level of servants.

  ‘I was born in Devon, sir, so it is to be expected,’ said John rather shortly. The speaker was a short middle-aged man, running to fat, dressed in a rather dandified blue tunic with ornate embroidery around the neck and cuffs. He had a sharp nose and small blue eyes, his face rimmed with a narrow beard which matched the cap of brown hair on top of his head.

  ‘Renaud de Seigneur is Lord of Freteval in the county of Blois and has been a guest here for several weeks,’ explained Ranulf, detecting some brusqueness in de Wolfe’s tone and hastening to mollify it. ‘Lady Hawise d’Ayncourt is his gracious wife.’

  Ranulf smiled at the woman across the table and John looked at her for the first time. Until then, she had kept her head down and seemed intent on eating. Her face had been partly obscured by the wide linen couvre-chef, or cover-chief, that veiled her head and the silken wimple that hid her temples and throat.

  At Ranulf’s words, she lifted her head to smile at de Wolfe and he realised that she was quite beautiful. Always having a keen eye for a pretty woman, the many weeks of celibacy had sharpened his appreciation even more. Her smooth oval face had long-lashed dark eyes, a small straight nose and lips that pouted slightly in a full Cupid’s bow. What little could be seen of her hair under her head-rail was a glossy black with an almost midnight-blue sheen to it. She said nothing, but there was a look in her lovely eyes that said that she found this eagle-faced man of interest to her.

  ‘My wife was born in England, Sir John, though her family came from Gascony,’ confided Renaud de Seigneur. ‘She has a brother in Gloucester and a sister married to a manor-lord near Hereford, so we are journeying there to visit them.’

  ‘I have not seen them for eight years since Renaud married me and carried me off to France!’ Hawise spoke for the first time, her husky voice matching her exotic appearance which suggested some Latin ancestry, though John detected a trace of a West Country accent similar to his own. He guessed that she was about twenty-five years of age, her husband being at least two decades older. She and her maid – a silent mousy girl who kept her eyes on her food throughout the entire meal – were the only women in the hall. Except for the families of some of the servants who lived at the back of the yards, women were not allowed in the palace, apart from the guests, who usually stayed with their husbands and tire-women in the quarters above.

  Servants cleared dishes as they were emptied and brought fresh ones constantly. Herring, salt cod, eels, capon and mutton appeared, with platters of boiled beans, carrots and cabbage to bulk out the flesh. Bottler’s assistants topped up their pots with ale or cider and large jugs replenished pewter cups of red wine.

  Both the food and drink were of only moderate quality – especially the somewhat sour wine – but they were adequate for daily fare. John’s subsistence was part of the perquisites of his appointment, but he supposed that those who were not on the palace staff had to pay for their keep, unless they were official invitees.

  ‘Are you staying in the guest chambers here?’ he asked, directing his question at Renaud, but making firm eye contact with his wife. ‘I assumed that you would eat there.’

  He had not the slightest interest in their arrangements, but could not resist trying to further a dialogue with such an attractive woman.

  ‘We often do stay upstairs, but we sometimes find it more congenial here, hearing news and gossip and meeting interesting people,’ said Hawise. She looked from under lowered eyelids at de Wolfe and the tip of a pink tongue appeared briefly.

  Her husband seemed oblivious to her mild flirting, but Ranulf looked uneasy. ‘Renaud de Seigneur and his lady are waiting for the arrival of Queen Eleanor, so that they may go with the court to Gloucester rather than risk the journey alone.’

  De Wolfe cut a slice of mutton from a joint in front of him and lifted it on to his trencher. He thought of offering some to Hawise, as it was courteous for a man to supply a lady with her food, but as her husband was sitting alongside her, he thought he had best leave that duty to him, in case he was thought impertinent. Instead, he followed up Ranulf’s remark.

  ‘I had heard that the queen was coming. Do we know when? And will the whole court be moving with her?’ he asked.

  The knight from the Marshalsea nodded, as he waved a hand to a servant to take away the remnants of his own trencher. ‘Within a couple of weeks, it is said – depending upon a fair wind from the mouth of the Seine. We have a troop of men-at-arms ready down at Portsmouth to escort her party when it arrives.’ He swallowed the rest of his wine. ‘And yes, within a few days of her arrival, I suspect that the grand dame will want to be on the move again, first down to Windsor, then Marlborough on the way to Gloucester.’

  The eyes of the woman opposite locked with John’s and a frisson of desire passed unbidden through him.

  ‘Sir John, you are well-acquainted with the great persons of state, it seems,’ she said. ‘It seems strange that everyone still refers to her as “the queen” when the real queen is never mentioned!’

  De Wolfe was reluctant to pursue this topic, but felt he must make some reply. ‘Berengaria has never set foot in England, my lady, as I’m sure you know. She was not even at King Richard’s coronation, across the yard there in the abbey.’

  ‘I hear Eleanor is a formidable woman,’ persisted Hawise. ‘Have you met her yourself?’

  He shook his head regretfully. ‘I fear not, my lady. When I was with the king, both in Palestine and on his disastrous journey homewards, his mother was far away.’

  ‘Didn’t she go with her husband on the Second Crusade?’ Hawise’s eyes were wide with excitement.

  ‘She did indeed, madam – and legend has it that she led her own company of high-born ladies dressed as Amazons!’

  Hawise gasped, a hand fluttering at her neck.

  ‘She is certainly a most extraordinary woman,’ observed Renaud. ‘I was in her presence once in Mortain when she visited Count John there. Though advancing in years, she is still a handsome and regal lady. I would not care to cross her!’

  Nor would anyone else, de Wolfe thought. The old queen, once wife to King Louis VII of France before she married Henry II, was a powerful figure behind the Plantagenet family. Imprisoned by her husband for sixteen years for siding with their sons against him, she had later helped to save England from her youngest son’s treachery when his brother was imprisoned in Germany. The conversation continued across the table for some time, mainly about the personalities in the court and the odd position of Westminster in the dual kingdom of Normandy and England.

  Primarily a soldier, John had never taken that much interest in politics, though of course he knew the general situation. It was Ranulf of Abingdon who was the best informed, having been a resident here for three years.

  ‘This is a strange place, de Wolfe,’ he began, pushing back on the edge of the table with his hands. ‘A royal court without a king! Since his coronation in eighty-nine, I doubt he’s spent more than a few months in England – and for most of that, he was marching around the country, rather than settled in Westminster.’

  Renaud de Seigneur nodded in agreement, watched intently by his wife. John had the feeling that they were avid for details of what went on in this enclave on the bank of the Thames.

  ‘The Lionheart’s true court is Rouen,’ Renaud declaimed. ‘Though he was born in Oxford, he is first and foremost Duke of Aquitaine and Normandy. England is but a colony to him, a source of money and men to fight his wars.’

  Blindly loyal to Richard though he was, de Wolfe could hardly deny this statement, though he was resentful to hear it fall from the lips of a Frenchman. Renaud was not even a Norman, coming as he did from the count
y of Blois, which had a somewhat ambiguous position between the territories of Richard and Philip of France.

  ‘Yet there seems to be a large complement of ministers, officers, clerks and servants here, considering the sovereign never sets foot in the place?’ observed Hawise, giving John another melting glance from her lovely eyes.

  Uneasy that her husband might take offence at this obvious flirting under his very nose, John turned to Ranulf. ‘The place always seems busy, even if we have no resident royalty.’

  Flattered to be looked upon as the fount of knowledge, Ranulf launched into an explanation.

  ‘England is now governed largely from here, even in the absence of the king,’ he explained. ‘The Curia Regis, though it mainly sits in Rouen, is also based here, in so far as decisions about England are concerned, so the major barons, bishops and other great men are constantly back and forth. This is why we maintain the guest accommodation – though the ministers of state usually have houses of their own in the neighbourhood.’

  ‘In my father’s day, I recall that Winchester seemed to be the most important place,’ observed Lady Hawise.

  Ranulf, who seemed to have the same appreciation of a fair lady as the coroner, nodded as he gave her his most winning smile.

  ‘Winchester was the Saxon capital, but now almost everything has been moved up to Westminster.’ He looked rather dramatically over his shoulder and lowered his voice. ‘In fact, I am involved in organising the final part of the move now. The Exchequer is already here, but the remainder of the Treasury will be coming up next week, under heavy guard.’

  The French baron and his wife looked suitably impressed and Renaud tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially.

  ‘They’ll hang you for giving away such state secrets to foreigners,’ he joked. ‘Maybe I’ll hire some Welsh mercenaries and ambush you on the way!’

  The under-marshal grinned and winked at Hawise, but she seemed more interested in John, who was scowling at Ranulf’s indiscretion. ‘Stranger things have happened,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘I’d not let such talk go further.’