Crowner Royal (Crowner John Mysteries)

by Bernard Knight

  They shook their heads, but the shepherd spoke up again.

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but I reckon he wasn’t killed just here. He’s been dragged for a bit, look at those reeds and grass.’

  They all turned to look at where the ragged old man was pointing, across the rough ground away from the path and towards the outer fringes of Westminster. John now noticed a faint track of crushed and bent vegetation running intermittently towards them.

  With Gwyn close behind, he strode alongside the indistinct marks, cursing as his feet either twisted between lumpy tussocks of long grass or squelched into pools of mud. The proctor’s constable hurried behind them, but a few hundred paces further on, they all came to a halt.

  ‘Can’t see the trail any more,’ growled Gwyn. ‘The ground has risen a bit and got firmer.’ As they neared the houses on the western side of the village, they had climbed a couple of feet on to what used to be Thorney Island, the gravel bank that was the very reason for Westminster’s existence. By the same token, the grass became shorter and closer cropped by livestock, so that the trail vanished.

  John turned around and looked back along the line they had followed, then swivelled and projected the direction ahead of them. ‘The nearest houses are those,’ he snapped, pointing at a row of huts and two-storeyed buildings a few hundred yards away.

  ‘That’s the top end of Duck Lane,’ said Roland. ‘Comes off Tothill Street, at the back of the abbey.’

  ‘Then you had better make some enquiries there, to see if anyone’s missing. Get someone to come and look at the corpse.’

  They retraced their steps to the body and the constable sent the two abbey labourers back to Duck Lane as the coroner had ordered. ‘What are we to do with the corpse?’ he asked de Wolfe. ‘You’ve viewed it now, so can we shift the poor fellow back to the abbey dead-house?’

  John pondered the matter, aware that it was a delicate situation. If the victim was connected with the palace, then he could assume jurisdiction – and even if he was from the abbey, then Abbot Postard had more or less confirmed that he was content for such cases to be handled by the Coroner of the Verge. But if the fellow were neither of these, then those officious bastards from the city would want to elbow him out of their way.

  Gwyn virtually read his mind. ‘They’ll never know in London that this ever happened,’ he said, hopefully.

  John shook his head stubbornly. ‘I don’t want to get mixed up in another squabble. It was only the day before yesterday that the Justiciar got the mayor and his sheriffs to compromise. We have to stick to the rules now that they’ve been made.’

  ‘So what do we do with the body?’ persisted the constable. ‘We can hardly leave it here to rot.’

  The coroner felt the heat of the noonday sun on his face and came to a decision.

  ‘Very well, take it to the dead-house. I’ll go back to the palace and make some arrangements.

  A rumble from his stomach told him it was dinnertime and he took pity on his ever-hungry officer.

  ‘You go back to the house, Gwyn, and start eating. Tell Osanna I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  He began squelching his way back to the path and left the others to move the body as best they could.

  ‘What happened, Crowner? Are we going to deal with this corpse?’ asked Gwyn, looking up from gnawing on a pork knuckle he had lifted from his trencher.

  De Wolfe slumped on to the bench opposite and poured himself a pint of ale from a jug on the table.

  ‘I’m not touching it. Let those people from the city take it over. They should be here later this afternoon.’

  As the landlady came in with his bowl of potage and a platter with several meaty pork bones, he explained what had happened.

  ‘I couldn’t go searching for Thomas, so I got one of the Chancery clerks to write a message for that sheriff fellow, Godard, and sent a royal messenger post-haste to the city, saying that we had a body for them.’

  ‘What if it turns out to be a palace servant or someone from the abbey?’ objected Gwyn, who seemed reluctant to hand over their business to others. John shook his head as he dipped his spoon, carved from a cow’s horn, into his soup.

  ‘He isn’t, it seems. By the time those fellows had hauled the corpse to the abbey mortuary, someone had recognised him, even with the face beaten in. His leather apron should have given us an inkling – it was covered in small burns, as he’s an ironmaster and blacksmith from Duck Lane.’

  Gwyn seemed faintly disappointed. ‘I was hoping that we had a nice juicy assault and murder to keep us occupied!’

  De Wolfe paused between spoonfuls. ‘We’ve not made much progress with the last one yet!’ he growled. ‘Looks as if the palace stabbing will remain a mystery for ever, unless we get some better information.’

  After they had finished everything that Osanna had produced, they refilled their ale-pots and sat back in a companionable silence. John wondered how far down the Thames estuary the St Radegund had reached and prayed for a safe journey for them back to Devon. The sea was a treacherous beast and each voyage was a risky adventure, which was why every ship’s crew sang the traditional hymn of thanks to the Virgin Mary when they reached port safely.

  Eventually, they stirred themselves from their postprandial torpor which the returning heat had encouraged. They made their way back to the bare chamber in the palace, where they found Thomas. He was reading his Vulgate of St Jerome, his most treasured possession, which by now he must surely have known off by heart. He had already heard of the latest murder and like Gwyn he was disappointed to hear that they were not to take on the case. The Westminster grapevine must have been working overtime, as he already knew the name of the victim.

  ‘He was called Osbert Morel and had a workshop at the back of his dwelling in Duck Lane,’ he announced. ‘A widower, he lived alone and was said to be a solitary, secretive sort of fellow.’

  De Wolfe once again marvelled at Thomas’s capacity to trawl up information in the shortest possible time.

  ‘You don’t happen to know who killed him and with what?’ he asked, but the sarcasm was lost on the little priest.

  ‘One of the proctors told me that there was blood on the ground in his yard and drips going through the gate at the back. There was still money in his scrip and his house-chest, so it can’t have been a robbery.’

  ‘Must have happened during the night,’ said Gwyn. ‘No one could have dragged a body covered in blood for a couple of furlongs in broad daylight.’

  De Wolfe shrugged. ‘It’s none of my business now. He was nothing to do with the palace or the abbey, so the bloody city men are welcome to him. Let’s hope they have better luck than we’ve had so far.’

  A little later, they had a visit from Ranulf of Abingdon, who brought a welcome skin of red Loire wine to share with them.

  ‘We need some fluid to fortify ourselves. It’s as hot as hell itself over those stables,’ he complained. His bachelor quarters were in the Marshalsea, the long block of wooden buildings that housed both horses and the men who were responsible for all palace transport.

  When Gwyn had produced some pewter cups from a shelf, they settled to drink and gossip, which Thomas joined in again with his tale of the murder in Duck Lane. Ranulf shook his head in wonderment. ‘Two mysterious killings in little more than a week,’ he observed sadly. ‘Apart from a few drunken brawls, I can’t recall another slaying in Westminster in the whole time I’ve been here.’

  John wondered once again why he had been saddled with being Coroner of the Verge, as there seemed little need for one, unless things were different once the court went on the move.

  As if reading his mind, Ranulf came out with his own piece of news.

  ‘A herald came up from Portsmouth today with the news that Queen Eleanor has left Rouen for Honfleur. Depending upon the weather, a king’s ship is expected to arrive with her in about a week’s time. We have to be prepared to be on the move soon after that.’

  They
discussed the arrangements as the wineskin emptied, as all this was new to John. Ranulf, as an under-marshal, was used to the perambulations of Hubert Walter’s court, even though these were less frequent now that the king was abroad.

  ‘We lodge each night at some convenient place, preferably a castle or a royal house,’ he explained. ‘This time it will no doubt be Windsor, Reading, Newbury, Marlborough, Chippenham and then Bristol. The old lady wants to get to Gloucester, then probably back here through Oxford, to take ship again at Portsmouth.’

  De Wolfe rasped at his black stubble with his fingers. ‘That journey will take a devil of a time, given all the carts with the impedimenta of the court! I doubt we’ll cover more than twelve or fifteen miles a day.’

  ‘We’ll be away for a few weeks, that’s for sure,’ agreed Ranulf.

  ‘If they stop at Bristol for a few days, maybe we can get away to Devon?’ suggested Gwyn hopefully.

  When the wine was finished, the marshal reluctantly made his way back to the stables, saying that he had better have the wagons checked for the coming long journey. After the failure of their wheel-hub on the recent trip from Winchester, de Wolfe considered this was a wise precaution. After Ranulf had left, the coroner’s trio felt pleasantly drowsy, given the wine and the growing heat and Gwyn was soon snoring noisily, slumped with his head in his arms on the window ledge. Thomas continued to read, though he felt his eyelids droop, even over the sacred Latin prose of St Jerome. John managed to stay awake, though as he scraped under his fingernails with the point of his dagger, his thoughts wandered from Exeter to the image of the little ship now surely off the north coast of Kent. Then his mind’s eye flew even farther away to Chepstow in Wales, where the memory of Nesta still plagued him, but inevitably returned to Exeter and the little priory of Polsloe, where Matilda was lodged like some brooding bear in a cave.

  This sleepy reverie lasted another hour, until it was rudely shattered by the sound of heavy footsteps on the boards of the passage outside the chamber. A tap on the door was abruptly followed by it being flung open, the young page who had conducted the visitor being pushed aside as a large and angry man burst into the room.

  As John jerked himself back to the present, he saw it was the other sheriff from the city, Robert fitz Durand, who had been at the meeting with Hubert Walter two days earlier. The wrathful look on his face accentuated the swarthiness of his skin, which almost suggested some Levantine or at least southern European blood. He offered no greeting, but launched straight into a tirade.

  ‘De Wolfe, have you such a short memory that you already breach the spirit of our agreement, shabby though it was?’ he shouted rudely.

  John rose to his feet and with his knuckles on the table, glared at the newcomer. He was almost a head taller that fitz Durand, who was a wiry, but slightly built man, so he stooped to look down at the arrogant sheriff. Gwyn had also risen and lurked menacingly in the background, while the timid clerk had backed away to the wall and watched the scene with trepidation.

  The coroner controlled his own quick temper with an effort.

  ‘Why so ferocious, sheriff? The matter is in your hands. I want no part of it.’

  ‘No part of it, be damned!’ he bellowed. ‘You went to the corpse, you pulled it about, examined it and sent others to seek more information! Is that not interfering in a case which the Justiciar defined as none of your business?’

  De Wolfe held up a hand, which though placatory, he would preferred to have slapped around the other man’s face.

  ‘Now wait a moment, fitz Durand! Firstly, I was prevailed upon by the abbey prior to view the victim as a matter of urgency. For all we knew then, this unknown man could have been from the palace – and even if he had been an abbey servant, it fell into my jurisdiction by virtue of the abbot’s dispensation.’

  ‘But he wasn’t either of those, damn it!’ snarled the sheriff. ‘He was a villager and thus a resident of Middlesex, for which county I am responsible.’

  ‘And how was anyone to know that, if he was face down in a ditch?’ shouted John, losing patience with this blustering knight. ‘As soon as I knew he was not from the palace, I went to the trouble of having a message sent to you immediately by a fast horseman. What more do you want?’

  ‘You should mind your own business and leave such matters to those who have dealt perfectly well with such events for many years past,’ snapped Robert, now with hands on hips, glaring back at de Wolfe. Thomas nervously thought that they looked like two cockerels squaring up to each other in a barnyard.

  ‘If you have such complaints, then take them to the Chief Justiciar,’ rasped John. ‘And if you don’t like the rules he agreed upon at the meeting in the Great Hall, then consider this – he acts upon the direct wishes of our King Richard, so if you flaunt those, then you might well be guilty of treason!’

  John always liked rubbing in the royal authority and hinting at accusations of sedition.

  Robert fitz Durand began protesting, but then realised he had better be careful of what he said before two witnesses, given that it was common knowledge that John de Wolfe had the ear of both the Justiciar and the king himself. His voice trailed away into a growling mumble, as John pressed home his point.

  ‘I consider that I have acted courteously and properly, which is more than can be said for your behaviour, bursting in here in such an ill-mannered fashion! You should be grateful that I have informed you so quickly and written for you what few details I had at the time. At least I saw the corpse fresh and passed on a description of his wounds.’

  He sat down again to indicate that the interview was over.

  ‘Now I suggest that you get on with your own investigation as soon as possible, for in this weather, the cadaver will corrupt very rapidly.’

  The sheriff flushed at this peremptory dismissal and stalked to the still-open door. ‘The mayor shall hear of this,’ he snarled as he reached it.

  ‘I very much hope he will – and I trust you will tell him how I did my best to assist you,’ replied de Wolfe, now well in control of his temper.

  For answer, fitz Durand marched out into the corridor, pushing aside the page who had been eavesdropping, and disappeared without a word of thanks or farewell.

  ‘The bastard!’ was Gwyn’s succinct comment. ‘Are we going to have to put up with his ranting every time we get a corpse?’

  De Wolfe sighed, wishing again that he was back in Devon.

  ‘In future, I’m only going to deal with cases where we know definitely that the victim is from either the palace or the abbey. Those jealous men from the big city are welcome to any doubtful ones. Thank God we are going on tour very soon, away from the objectionable sods in London!’

  In the Lesser Hall that evening, the main topic of conversation was the impending arrival of Queen Eleanor, the news of which had spread throughout the palace within minutes of its being received, thanks to the garrulous clerks in the chancery offices. As well as being Justiciar and Archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter was now for all practical purposes also the Lord Chancellor, as the disgraced William Longchamp had been ejected from England almost two years earlier. Although he nominally retained the chancellorship due to the king’s benevolence, Longchamp was exiled in Normandy and though Eustace, Bishop of Ely, was nominally Vice Chancellor, Hubert effectively controlled Chancery and all its business, so the news of the old queen’s arrival went there first. However, after this had been gossiped over and dissected by those at the supper tables, the bloody murder on the marshes became the next topic for conversation.

  ‘The sheriff’s men have been buzzing around the abbey mortuary like flies today,’ said Archdeacon Bernard. ‘And judging by the smell that is starting to drift over from there, the real flies will soon be buzzing as well!’

  The unpleasant images that this conjured up did not seem to discourage any of the usual group from tucking in to their food.

  John had to explain why he was no longer involved in the investigation, as every
one seemed to know that he had been out in the reens to view the cadaver.

  ‘It seems ridiculous for officers to come all the way from the city to deal with it, when we have England’s premier coroner sitting right here,’ effused Hawise d’Ayncourt, fluttering her eyelashes at John as she spoke.

  ‘Perhaps an assault on a mere blacksmith is insufficient to warrant the attention of a royal coroner,’ said her husband, with a trace of sarcasm in his tone.

  ‘Was he robbed?’ asked Bernard de Montfort, as he speared another grilled herring and laid it on his trencher. ‘That would seem to be the most likely motive for killing a tradesman.’

  De Wolfe shook his head. ‘My clerk, who knows everything, says he was not. That’s all I know about the matter. I am more concerned about the death of that poor fellow from the guest chambers. I suppose you have heard no other rumours from upstairs, as you are residing there?’

  Renaud de Seigneur shook his head. ‘We are just passing guests, we are not privy to the gossip of the servants.’

  Hawise gave John a coy look, lowering her eyes as she spoke. ‘All I have gathered is that Basil, if that was his name, was very friendly with a young monk across the yard. Unusually friendly, it would seem!’ she added archly.

  Her meaning was clear, but no one responded to her, this being a subject about which delicate ladies were supposed to remain ignorant. Adroitly changing the subject, Ranulf observed that their dining regime would almost certainly be disrupted when the queen arrived.

  ‘This Lesser Hall was used by the king when he was in residence – as did his father Henry before him. Though usually the king ate in his chambers above, he sometimes used this for dining, as well as for large meetings and sessions of the Royal Council. I expect that Eleanor will revert to what she was used to, before her husband locked her away for sixteen years!’

  De Montfort in his turn shied away from the unwelcome memory of the old king’s vengeance upon Eleanor for encouraging his sons to revolt against him. ‘I hear there will be an elaborate feast when she arrives. Will that be in here, I wonder?’