Crowner Royal (Crowner John Mysteries)

by Bernard Knight

  If he had been Thomas de Peyne, the coroner would certainly have made the Sign of the Cross and murmured a prayer for forgiveness for his blatant lies.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  In which Crowner John goes hunting

  The next few days passed without incident until the palace began to murmur with anticipation at the return of the court from Gloucester. A herald rode in with the news that they were at Oxford and would probably arrive in Westminster in three days’ time. This meant a great deal of work for those who would have to deal with the sudden influx of several hundred hungry souls, horses and oxen. The Keeper was seen to be striding around with an even more woebegone face than usual, harrying his staff into greater preparedness.

  For the Coroner of the Verge, there was little to do. The only event that concerned him was a fire in Thieving Lane, where sparks had set the thatch of a house alight. Neighbours and lay brothers from the abbey managed to limit the damage by rushing for ladders and pulling clumps of smoking straw down into the street, but John still had to attend the scene and get Thomas to write a short report for the abbot and the justices, as fires in towns were a serious hazard which could destroy acres of closely packed buildings.

  Two days before the queen and her entourage were due to return, John had an invitation from Bernard de Montfort to join him and some others in a hunting trip to one of the abbey manors. Unusually for a knight, John was not addicted to hunting, perhaps because he had spent so many years in campaigns and battles, where the hunting was usually of two-legged beasts. Most of his fellow Normans saw hunting the boar, the stag and the wolf as both a sport and a means of keeping them in practice for war, by honing their skills with horse, bow and lance.

  However, he had little else to divert him and he agreed to go with them to the forests around Green-ford, one of Abbot Postard’s manors, about twelve miles to the west. He took Gwyn with him as his esquire, as the Cornishman was still adamant that he was not going to let him out of his sight until his would-be assassin was dealt with. They left Westminster in the afternoon and rode out with Bernard de Montfort, Guy de Bretteville, Peter le Paumer and half a dozen others, including the prior and the precentor of the abbey, both keen hunters and Gerald, the chaplain of the palace chapel.

  John had borrowed a couple of ‘coursers’ from the Marshalsea, as Odin and Gwyn’s heavy mare would be of little use for rapid sprints in woodland. The stay in the manor house at Greenford was pleasant enough, with a good meal and plenty of ale, cider and wine to lubricate the conversation. Early next morning, they rode out from the stockade around the house into the surrounding farmland, then into the park. This was a few hundred acres of forest that had been surrounded by a deer-proof fence to keep in the game and discourage those who might risk the inevitable death penalty for poaching. At intervals around this fence, there were deer traps, a deep ditch on the inner side to prevent the animals from escaping, but a grassy ramp on the outside to allow any wild beasts to enter. Attracted by hinds in season, males would jump in, but were unable to get out again and so increased the manor’s stock.

  The hunting party, about a dozen in number, assembled on their horses and waited whilst the huntmaster and his assistants marshalled their hounds. The different types of dog had different functions – the scent-pursuing lymer, the running-dog for stamina and the greyhound for the speed needed once the quarry was sighted. The hunters carried a variety of weapons, some with short bows, others with crossbows. A few preferred the short lance and most carried clubs hanging from their saddle-bows. A platoon of servants ran beside them when they began to move, some holding hounds on the leash, others beating the trees and yelling to drive the quarry out of hiding. Several green-clad hunt-masters and their assistants were mounted and kept in touch by blasts on their horns.

  Soon the party broke up into smaller groups, most with a hound or two out ahead, being controlled by a handler running behind. John cantered down a path between the trees and then turned to follow the sudden urgent sound of horns, somewhere away to his right. Gwyn came close behind, with Bernard de Montfort, dressed in a very un-clerical brown tunic and breeches, his silent manservant Raoul close behind on foot. The path narrowed and then petered out so that they had to go forward between the trees and saplings at a walk, their horses brushing aside leafy branches and bushes.

  ‘This is getting us nowhere, de Wolfe!’ called the archdeacon from behind. ‘Best to go back and work our way around on the main track.’

  John, brought up against what seemed to be an impenetrable thicket of ash and hazel, had to agree and pulled his courser’s head around to face back down the path of crushed vegetation that they had just made. As he did so, there was a distinct and chillingly familiar twanging sound from beyond the bushes and John de Wolfe jerked in his saddle as a crossbow bolt hit him in the chest.

  ‘I’m all right, Gwyn! You get the bastard!’ roared John, who rather to his surprise was still alive and apparently uninjured.

  He looked down at the tear in his grey riding cloak, which now overlaid a smarting bruise over his ribs, but nothing else.

  Gwyn, ignoring his master’s command, hastily came back and slid from his saddle, with de Montfort close behind. John looked down and saw a bolt on the ground nearby, with some odd red fragments scattered around it. The Cornishman insisted on feeling around de Wolfe’s chest to see if there was any wound or bleeding. Both he and de Montfort took some convincing that he was not seriously hurt, but again he yelled at his officer to pursue whoever had loosed off the crossbow at him. With a roar of rage, the Cornishman set off on foot, crashing through the bushes towards where the bolt must have come from.

  ‘My man has already gone after him, he’s quick on his feet,’ bellowed the archdeacon. ‘But you, Sir John, what about you? How could you survive that bolt?’

  The coroner, still in the saddle, had been investigating his chest, pulling aside his cloak over the painful bruise that was now smarting like fury. He gave a shout of surprised astonishment.

  ‘Hubert Walter saved my life! By God’s guts, that’s incredible!’

  He opened his short cloak and showed Bernard de Montfort a torn parchment in a ripped inside pocket. Pulling it out, a shower of brittle red fragments fell from where a length of pink tape carried the sparse remnants of a thick wax seal.

  ‘But a crossbow bolt would go through that easily!’ protested the priest, unable to believe his eyes.

  ‘It must have been a glancing blow and it skidded off sideways! Thanks be to the Virgin and all her saints!’ he added fervently. ‘Now let’s get after your servant and my officer; we need to catch this murdering swine and find out who he is.’

  Shocked by his miraculous escape, but too hardened to admit it, he kicked his horse into action and heedless of branches and brambles tearing at him, charged off down the path to the main track, with de Montfort struggling to keep up with him. He turned left in the direction that Gwyn and Raoul must have taken, pounding along, shouting for his officer to say where he was. Suddenly, the trees thinned and they found themselves almost at the edge of the forest, with the park fence ahead of them.

  ‘There he is, at the deer-leap!’ shouted Bernard and true enough three figures were seen in the pit beneath the sheer wall of the trap. John slid from his horse, wincing at the pain in his chest and stumbled down the steep slope which formed part of the one-way system for the deer.

  Gwyn and Raoul were bending over a still shape that lay at the foot of the ten-foot drop from the outer side of the leap.

  ‘The sod is dead, blast it!’ yelled Gwyn, incensed beyond measure. ‘I wanted the joy of twisting his head off myself, but he’s beaten me to it!’

  ‘Damn that!’ stormed de Wolfe. ‘I wanted him alive so that I could discover who’s behind this.’

  ‘How did this happen, Raoul?’ demanded the archdeacon of his servant.

  The powerfully built Raoul looked sullen at this condemnation of his efforts. ‘He was dead by the time I got here, sire!
’ he growled. ‘He was well ahead of me when I heard him crashing through the bushes. Then he streaked down here and started to climb the leap, as the fence is too high elsewhere. He almost got to the top, then fell back and must have broken his neck.’

  The angry coroner looked at the low man-made cliff that fronted the grassy ramp on the other side. It was made of earth and rocks, partly colonised by clumps of coarse grass and weeds.

  The dead man lay crumpled on the ground at its foot, his head bent at an unnatural angle. A few large stones lay tumbled nearby as if they had fallen out of the cliff face when he attempted to climb up.

  ‘Turn him over, Gwyn, let’s have a look at the bastard,’ commanded de Wolfe. He did so and the sightless face of a rough-looking man in a brown smock and serge trousers stared up at the sky. He had a tight wide belt carrying a long dagger and wore wooden-soled shoes on his feet.

  ‘Anyone recognise the bastard?’ asked Gwyn. ‘I’ve never seen him before.’

  None of the others admitted to knowing him and by this time one of the Greenford hound-masters had joined them, as his dogs had run to this unusual gathering as they passed by on the main track. He was told of the failed crossbow attack and after some strenuous blasts on his horn, others of the hunting party came to join them. The prior was one of them and he was aghast at yet another attempt on the life of the palace coroner.

  ‘You must have made some persistent enemies, Sir John,’ was his comment, as he studied the features of the dead man. The face of the corpse was dirty and coarse-skinned, with heavy brows and a lantern jaw. He had no beard or moustache, but a raised dark brown mole, the size of a thumbnail and covered in coarse hairs, sat on his right cheek amongst the cow-pox scars.

  ‘I seem to recall this fellow’s face and that hairy tumour on his cheek. I have seen him about Westminster, though I have no idea who he is.’

  More hunters gravitated to the leap and soon almost all the party was there, commiserating with John and making sure that he did not need the services of an apothecary. They all clustered around the corpse and one of the lay brothers that came with the abbey precentor also recognised the man.

  ‘He is a ruffian I have seen about the town,’ he said confidently. ‘I remember that disfiguring mole and once saw him staggering drunk out of the Crown alehouse in Tothill Street and starting a fight with another man.’

  John, remarkably composed for one who had escaped death by a miracle, thought it very significant that the failed assassin was from Westminster, a dozen miles from home. It confirmed that whoever had employed him – for he was obviously a hired killer – must also be from there. Though he had no recollection of the man who had attacked him in the crypt of St Stephen’s Chapel, he felt it likely that this was the same man.

  This was rapidly confirmed when another of the hunting party came forward to view the cadaver.

  ‘That is the man I saw running out of the passage outside the chapel!’ declared Gerard, the chaplain who had tried to come to John’s aid at that time.

  In spite of the drama, the hunters had come to hunt and even such a startling episode as this did not put them off. De Wolfe and Gwyn decided that they had had enough excitement for one day and after the rest had regrouped to go back into the forest for their entertainment, they trotted back to the manor house, leaving some of the manor servants to carry the corpse back to the stables. As Greenford was just outside John’s jurisdiction, he was not bothered about any legal formalities. If the bailiff wished to report the matter to the sheriffs who acted as coroners, it was up to him and John for once had no enthusiasm for seeing that the law was followed to the letter.

  Gwyn fussed over his master like a hen with a single chick, but all John wanted before they made their way back home was to sit down in the hall with a quart or two of ale and something to eat. This was readily provided on the orders of the house steward, who had heard of the incident in the forest and was eager to do all he could for the king’s coroner. As they sat eating and drinking at a table in the hall, Gwyn wondered aloud what was provoking these murderous attacks on his master.

  ‘Is it because of the treasure or this tale about spies that Byard spun us?’ he said. ‘For someone is trying to shut your mouth for ever!’

  De Wolfe put down his mug and gave a wry grin. ‘I may have been asking for it, in a way. Several times now, I’ve deliberately boasted about being on the verge of making an arrest for both the crimes. I hoped that it might provoke either culprit into taking flight or giving away something that would show their guilt.’

  Gwyn smoothed down the ends of his drooping moustaches.

  ‘Instead of that, they tried to strangle you and then shoot your giblets out of your chest!’ he exclaimed. ‘But we don’t know which crime it was for.’

  ‘No, but both attacks were by the same man, so it was for the same crime. It would be too much of a coincidence if the same lout was hired by two different parties.’

  None of this told them which party it was and eventually they rode home being none the wiser – and now John would have to go the Justiciar’s office when Hubert returned, to get a new seal placed on his most useful warrant.

  ‘Maybe you should ask for one made of iron,’ suggested Gwyn, facetiously. ‘Next time, perhaps sealing wax won’t be as effective!’

  The royal procession returned with somewhat less pomp and glamour than when they had left several weeks earlier. The banners still waved and the trumpets still blew, but in the late afternoon of a hot day, everyone was tired, dusty and limp, apart from Eleanor of Aquitaine and William Marshal, who still rode stiffly upright in their saddles. They came in from Windsor and after the major figures had been escorted into the royal apartments and the chambers above and around the Lesser Hall, all the others rapidly dispersed. Grooms and ostlers ran to take care of the horses and the ox-wagons came to a halt in Old Palace Yard behind the stores’ entrances. Ranulf and William Aubrey had plenty to occupy themselves in sorting out the confusion of animals and carts, and John did not see them until the evening, as he kept well out of the way in his chamber facing the river. He wanted to keep out of sight of Hawise for the time being, though he realised he would have to face her sooner or later. Thankfully, she and her husband would soon be leaving with the queen, as Eleanor would be departing for one of the channel ports within a few days.

  He was not all that keen on meeting Hubert Walter either, given what little progress had been made over recovering the treasure, though at least he could confidently report now that Simon Basset was almost certainly the man who had stolen it from the Tower.

  A new decision was fermenting in de Wolfe’s mind, stemming from his abject failure to solve either the theft of the king’s gold or the murder of Basil, which seemed linked to some espionage activity. He was considering asking the Justiciar to release him from this appointment as Coroner of the Verge, given that he was patently unfitted for the task. He would have to leave with his tail between his legs, but at least he could go back to Devon and live out his life in quiet obscurity. Gwyn would no doubt revel in becoming landlord of the Bush Inn and Thomas would be happy to go back to his duties in Exeter Cathedral.

  It would mean a serious loss of face for him as a knight, especially as the king himself had insisted on the appointment. Creeping back to Exeter to lick the wounds of failure would be a bitter pill to swallow, but life in Westminster seemed too artificial to be borne. The advantages of life in Devon would be some compensation – except that he already anticipated the gleeful crowing of his hated brother-in-law, Richard de Revelle, when he heard of John’s fall from grace.

  But while de Wolfe was gloomily rehearsing the plans for his own professional suicide, things were happening nearby that were likely to alter the whole scenario.

  In spite of his earlier reluctance to face Hawise d’Ayncourt, John’s Crusader spirit rose sufficiently for him to damn the power that women held over him and to declare himself master of his own soul. At about the seventh hour by the abbey
bell, he went to the Lesser Hall and took his usual place on a bench with his acquaintances. Bernard de Montfort was there, as ready as ever to shovel good food into himself, as well as Guy de Bretteville and the physician from Berri. John was pleased to see William Aubrey and Ranulf of Abingdon back safely and in apparent good health. They greeted each other warmly, though John thought that Ranulf was somewhat reluctant to meet his eye as he sat down next to him on the bench.

  Opposite were Renaud de Seigneur and the ever-lovely Hawise. De Wolfe was girding himself to be polite but distant if she began using her cow’s eyes on him and making her usual suggestive and flirtatious remarks. Thus he was surprised when she responded to his civil greeting with a frosty nod and then proceeded to ignore him. John was rather piqued as well as surprised, for though he had decided to be firm in his avoidance of any further dallying with her, it was galling to know that his attraction for her suddenly seemed to have evaporated.

  He also came to realise that her husband was not his usual cheerful self, as Renaud sat silently picking at his food, darting glances now and then at the row of men sitting opposite. Archdeacon Bernard seemed oblivious of any such tension and chattered away, telling the company of the coroner’s miraculous escape from a murderous crossbow assassin and invoking the divine protection of God and King Richard in placing the stout warrant seal between the crossbow bolt and John’s vitals.

  Hawise affected to take no notice and though Ranulf and William showed concern, John thought that the marshal from Abingdon had only half his mind on the escapade. It soon became obvious what was going on as John began to intercept covert glances between Hawise and Ranulf and though they spoke not a single word to each other he knew with certainty that they had already become lovers.