Crowner Royal (Crowner John Mysteries)

by Bernard Knight

  ‘You were ambushed, but he got away,’ growled Gwyn. ‘When I catch him, I’ll tear his liver out with my teeth!’

  The older Benedictine laid a hand gently on the coroner’s shoulder. ‘Don’t try to talk until this bruising of your voicebox wears off, my son. We’ll give you some potions to ease it, as your clerk said.’

  John reached up tentatively to feel the back of his head, as he was aware of an ache there.

  ‘Yes, you have a lump there too, John, some bastard gave you a nasty whack!’ said Ranulf cheerfully. ‘But it’s your clerk to whom you should be grateful, he was the hero of the hour!’

  De Wolfe’s bloodshot eyes swivelled to look at Thomas de Peyne, though he took the advice to avoid speaking.

  ‘The little fellow probably saved your life,’ chortled Gwyn. ‘That’s usually my job, but he beat me to it this time.’

  John risked some gargling noises which were obviously a demand for more explanation and the Cornishman began it.

  ‘Just before I returned from a wasted search on the marshes behind the canon’s house, Thomas here said he was uneasy about you going off to meet some mysterious informant, so he decided to follow you down to that chapel place.’

  He nudged the priest to get him to continue and Thomas, wriggling with embarrassment, reluctantly described what happened.

  ‘I was concerned that you went alone to meet this unknown person, Crowner, even though you took your sword. There might have been half a dozen Brabançons waiting to jump on you.’

  He paused and shivered at the memory of his own desperate intervention. ‘So I followed a couple of minutes later and was in time to see this evil man strike you down with a club, then slip a cord around your neck and start strangling you.’

  Gwyn guffawed and slapped Thomas on the back. ‘Damn me if the little devil didn’t attack the assailant, though he was twice his size, according to Thomas!’

  ‘I had to do something, didn’t I?’ snapped the clerk indignantly. ‘I owe my life to Sir John, I couldn’t just stand by and see him murdered! There was a big brass cross on a long staff leaning against a wall, so I took it and struck the man with the heavy end. I’m afraid I snapped it, though it was already bent.’

  The infirmarian gave a benign smile. ‘I’m sure God – and Abbot Postard – will forgive you for that! It seems appropriate that a priest like yourself should use the emblem of Our Lord to save a life!’

  The other cleric – who John later discovered was Gerard, one of the two chaplains who ministered at St Stephen’s – also approved of Thomas’s attack with an ecclesiastical weapon. ‘That was an old cross going back to Stephen’s time, it was beyond repair anyway!’

  John reached out and gripped Thomas’s shoulder. ‘Once more, I have to thank you, good friend!’ he croaked, determined to show his gratitude, however painful his Adam’s apple might be.

  His clerk’s embarrassment was mixed with happy pride in having been able to repay some of his master’s kindness in giving him a job when he was destitute several years ago, but de Wolfe cut short his contentment with husky whispers.

  ‘But did you see who the swine was, Thomas? Who did this to me?’

  ‘I saw him clearly, Crowner, but I have no idea who he was,’ Thomas bleated. ‘He was a large, rough man, a labourer or perhaps a mercenary soldier. I have never seen him before – though I certainly would know him again!’

  ‘You were fortunate that he did not turn on you as well,’ said Ranulf. ‘You told us he let go of the coroner’s garrotte and fled.’

  Thomas nodded, a rather sheepish expression on his face.

  ‘I suspect it was the screams I made that scared him off, rather than my feeble attempts to injure him,’ he admitted. ‘Though I did manage to cut the back of his head when I caught him with the brass crosspiece of my weapon,’ he added proudly.

  The chaplain, Gerard, cut in at this point. ‘I heard the yells from the entrance to the chapel above, as I was going in to prepare for the next office,’ he explained. ‘I shouted lustily down the steps to ask what was happening and the next thing I knew, I was being shouldered aside by this large lout, who dashed up the stairs and promptly vanished through the outside door on to the river walk.’

  ‘And you didn’t recognise him, either?’ asked Ranulf.

  Gerard shook his head. ‘My brother Thomas’s description is accurate, he was a rough-looking villain with coarse features. All I recall was that he had a hairy mole on his cheek.’

  ‘We made a search of the palace and the yards as soon as we were told about the assault,’ said the guard sergeant. ‘But many minutes had passed by then and we had only a vague description of who we were seeking amongst all the crowds that come and go in the palace.’

  ‘It was the same with that swine who knifed Basil,’ growled Gwyn. ‘He vanished into thin air, for this place is like a rabbit warren, with doors and passages everywhere.’

  Ranulf laid a hand gently on de Wolfe’s shoulder. ‘Why should anyone want to murder you, John? This was a deliberate trap, luring you down to that crypt, then jumping you from behind.’

  The coroner’s reply was delayed by a young novice coming in with a pewter cup which he gave to the infirmarian, who held it to John’s lips. It was a posset of mulled wine sweetened with honey and immediately had the effect of soothing the rawness of his throat, which had felt as if he had feasted on broken glass.

  ‘I brought it on myself,’ he whispered, in answer to Ranulf’s question. ‘I put it about that I was about to unmask the thieves who took the treasure and also made some hints about knowing of some foreign spies in the palace.’

  The under-marshal roared with laughter, then apologised.

  ‘Sorry, but that’s rich! You put up a bluff and someone calls it with a club and a garrotte! You should join our gaming sessions, John, you would win a fortune.’

  Thomas looked far more serious. ‘Do you really think it was that, master? Someone wanting to silence you?’

  ‘It seems likely,’ croaked John. ‘Why else would someone want me dead?’

  ‘Which one d’you think it was?’ demanded Gwyn, ready to seek out someone and tear off his head for harming his old comrade. ‘Was it over the treasure or this tale brought by Robin Byard?’

  De Wolfe shrugged, finding that less painful than trying to speak, but any further discussion was ended by another young monk coming in with a steaming length of linen lying on a wooden tray. It was rolled like a large sausage and gave off a foul smell.

  ‘All of you must leave now, if you will,’ ordered the infirmarian. ‘I must apply this poultice of hot clay and herbs to Sir John’s neck. It will reduce the pain and swelling.’

  He shooed the men out of the small cubicle and proceeded to wrap the poultice around John’s neck, where an angry red line caused by the ligature had cut into the skin around its full circumference.

  ‘It stinks!’ protested de Wolfe.

  ‘But not as much as you would stink in your grave, had not your brave clerk saved your life!’ retorted the Benedictine.

  It was the following afternoon before de Wolfe was allowed to return to his lodging. He had suffered repeated applications of the poultice, as well as regular doses of the herbal honeyed wine. The tyrant of an infirmarian had also taken the opportunity to bleed him and purge his bowels, so that he was more than glad to escape, even though he readily admitted that the treatment seemed to have banished most of the pain in his throat and his voice was halfway back to normal.

  Gwyn and Thomas came to collect him and take him back to Long Ditch, both solicitous in their efforts to assist him. He shrugged off Gwyn’s offer of an arm to lean on. ‘It’s my bloody head and neck that suffered, not my legs,’ he growled, but leavened the rebuff with a lopsided grin.

  In the house, Osanna fussed over him even more and insisted on administering a different honey posset made according to her grandmother’s recipe. John accepted it with good grace, then washed it down with a pint of ale as soon her
back was turned. She appeared to have forgiven him for his indiscretion with Hawise d’Ayncourt and this latest drama seemed to restore their relations to normal.

  De Wolfe refused suggestions that he should take to his bed and he waited up until Osanna provided supper. She insisted that he had mostly liquid food, in the shape of a vegetable potage followed by a mutton stew in which she had shredded most of the meat so that he could swallow it more easily. The last course was a junket of rennet-curdled milk, flavoured with saffron. In fact, he was glad of her thoughtfulness, as the food slipped down easily, though he could see that poor Gwyn would have preferred using his teeth to rip apart a pork knuckle or a brisket of beef.

  Thomas had gone back to the abbey for his supper and fraternal gossip with his religious friends, so after the meal the coroner and his officer sat around the dead fire-pit and drank more ale, punctuated by sporadic conversation. John wondered how many times they had done this over the last two decades – sitting together in the evening in a devastated castle or under a thorn tree, talking over the day’s events, be they a bloody battle or a miserable ride across ruined French farmland or a stony desert in Outremer. His throat was improving by the hour and the desultory talk with his henchman proved no strain on his voice. The red line around his neck was still there, where the cord had dug into his skin, and a thin margin of bluish bruising had appeared alongside it, but apart from tenderness when the collar of his tunic rubbed him, he was virtually back to normal.

  ‘What are we going to do about this, Crowner?’ growled Gwyn. ‘We can’t let the bastards get away with attempting to kill a royal law officer!’

  ‘We’ve got to find them first,’ said John pragmatically. ‘They’ll put a foot wrong sooner or later, then we’ll have them. Maybe they’ll try again, but I won’t be so trusting next time.’

  ‘I’m not letting you out of my sight until this is settled!’ promised Gwyn with grim determination. ‘You’ll not so much as go to the privy without me standing guard outside!’

  De Wolfe grinned at the thought of his burly officer parading with drawn sword while he attended to his bowels, but his heart warmed to the faithful Cornish-man who he knew would die for him if required.

  The evening wore on, the sun still in the sky as the longest day of the year approached and it was about the eighth hour when there was a knock on the door to the lane. Osanna appeared almost instantly from the back door, like a genie from a bottle, confirming John’s suspicions that she spent much of her time lurking behind it to listen to what was said in the main room.

  Hurrying across to the front door, she opened it and stepped back in surprise when she saw the elegant woman on her threshold. But her indignant scowl was stillborn when she saw that behind Lady Hawise was a gentleman dressed in expensive, if rather garish clothing, with a manner and appearance that exuded nobility.

  From where John was sitting, he could at first see only the woman and began to groan at being hounded once again. He rose to his feet and then saw Renaud de Seigneur, with the maid Adele sheltering behind him. For a moment, he feared that the husband had come to accuse him of trying to seduce his wife, but their expressions of friendly concern reassured him.

  ‘Sir John, we have just heard the news, when we were at the supper table, for we were away overnight!’ fluted Hawise. ‘Ranulf told us that you had been viciously attacked and left for dead!’

  John invited them inside and requested Osanna to fetch wine and cups. She seemed flattered to have this French lord in her house and accepted his forward wife as long as she did not throw herself again at her resident knight. Gwyn diplomatically withdrew to the nether regions with her, leaving John to entertain the guests.

  The three sat at the table with the wine, the maid crouching unobtrusively in the corner, while de Wolfe regaled them with the tale of his ambush and his rescue by his clerk and the chaplain of St Stephen’s. Both Renaud and Hawise seemed genuinely concerned about his health and the Lord of Blois produced a glazed pottery bottle of red wine as a gift.

  ‘From my own vineyard in Freteval!’ he said proudly. For her part, Hawise offered him a small glass jar of a salve, which she said would help to remove the sting from his abused throat.

  Touched by their solicitude, de Wolfe endured their questions with patience, responding as politely as he could to their wild theorising about the reasons for this attack. Even Osanna, hovering within earshot, seemed to be mollified by Hawise’s concern for John’s welfare.

  ‘It is just as well that we will all soon be on the road to Gloucester,’ declared Renaud. ‘Then you will be safely away from whoever wishes you ill!’

  John gave one of his crooked grins. ‘Unless the miscreant goes with us,’ he said. ‘According to the preparations for the procession described by Ranulf, it seems that almost everyone in Westminster above kitchen boy, is joining the exodus.’

  Hawise fluttered a hand to her mouth in a patently false gesture of terror. ‘Sweet Mary preserve us!’ she gasped. ‘Do you think that we might have a killer in our midst as we travel?’

  De Seigneur patted her hand reassuringly. ‘Calm yourself, lady. We will have a strong escort of troops with us, for the queen’s sake, if not ours.’

  The cynical John felt that she was as hard as nails under that divine exterior and had little fear of being assaulted – and as for ravishment, he thought that perhaps she might welcome it as a change from the podgy Renaud.

  Hawise fluttered her lashes at him again. ‘And we have these doughty knights to protect us as well, Sir Ranulf and William, as well as our Crusading hero here!’

  The coroner made one of his all-purpose rumbles in his throat, but found it hurt, even used as deprecation. The other pair continued to prattle on about his awful experience, then turned to ask about the other current excitements in Westminster.

  ‘Is there any more news of who slew the poor canon?’ asked Renaud, his plump face wreathed in concern. ‘And has that stolen treasure turned up anywhere?’

  When John had to admit to not making any progress, Hawise probed the other recent murder: ‘That poor young man in our guest chambers, I still feel sad for him, though we never exchanged as much as a single word,’ she said solicitously. ‘It seems an injustice that he should lose his life and no one is brought to book for it.’

  Although he had already raised the bluff, de Wolfe had to conceal his lack of any progress in finding a culprit for Basil’s murder and muttered some vague claim about hoping to settle the matter very soon. He had heard nothing at all from the city sheriffs about the slaughtered ironworker, so that made three undetected murders of local men within a couple of weeks. Again, it made him wonder if his presence in Westminster was of any use whatsoever and, like Gwyn, strengthened his desire to go home to Devon.

  When the wine was finished and the conversation was exhausted, the pair from Blois rose to leave, with renewed expressions of concern for John’s health and hopes for a speedy return to full health and voice. Osanna hurried to open the door and bobbed her head obsequiously to the departing nobles.

  John followed them out into Long Ditch to send them on their way and just as they were going, Hawise offered her hand to John to bow over. It was an excuse for her to whisper to him.

  ‘You have been avoiding me, John! But our journey to Gloucester and back is a long one.’

  The coroner’s throat, if not his pride and temper, had improved greatly during the few days before the news was received of Queen Eleanor’s impending arrival. A herald on a fast horse had been dispatched from Kingston when she arrived there, so that Westminster could be put on full alert and the next morning the welcoming party set out to meet her entourage on the high road.

  Martin Stanford, the Deputy Marshal and his under-marshals, were the prime movers in organising this parade. The previous evening, their sergeants had hurried around all the personages required to take part, to ensure that they would be mounted and ready to go soon after dawn.

  Gwyn had cleaned all of Jo
hn’s equipment, polishing up the harness of his stallion Odin, so that he was well turned out when they assembled in New Palace Yard. It was not an event that called for armour and helmet, so he wore his best grey tunic and a mottled wolfskin cloak thrown back over both shoulders. His broad leather belt and baldric carried his broadsword and his head was uncovered, his black hair sweeping back to the nape of his neck.

  Twenty mounted men-at-arms formed the vanguard and rearguard of the escort, with another two-score civilians in their centre. Leading these was Hubert Walter, today in his secular mode as Chief Justiciar, rather than archbishop. He was dressed in similar fashion to de Wolfe, only in a scarlet tunic under his sword belt and a close-fitting linen helmet. Behind him were a number of earls and barons, members of the Curia, accompanied by the High Steward, the Deputy Chancellor, the Treasurer and other senior ministers. John rode in the next contingent, the middle-grade officers of the Exchequer and palace, including the Keeper and the Purveyor whilst a bevy of churchmen were led by the abbot, William Postard.

  A dozen outriders, mostly esquires and knights, flanked the procession, carrying gaily coloured banners and pennants that streamed in the wind to display the arms and devices of the most prominent members of the party.

  They rode out in fine style through the gates into King Street, the trumpets of the military escort blaring out as they advanced up the Royal Way towards the city, where they were to pick up the contingent provided by the Mayor and his council. A small crowd gathered along the road, always glad of some diversion in their drab lives. Some cheered or even jeered, as the cavalcade trotted past, especially when some of the horses, spooked by the trumpets, shied and skittered while their riders struggled and cursed to control them.

  Once through Ludgate, the crowds were denser, as the ant-hill that was the city was penetrated by the vanguard of the troops. The mayor and some of his twenty-five aldermen were waiting at the Guildhall, with the bishop from St Paul’s, his archdeacons, the two sheriffs and an escort of constables. Jealous as ever of their privileges and independence, the Mayor, Henry fitz Ailwyn de Londonstone, led his party into the vanguard of the column from Westminster, settling them by prior arrangement just behind the Chief Justiciar.