The Tinner's Corpse

by Bernard Knight

  The Archdeacon looked at de Wolfe, hoping that he would reply.

  ‘He certainly fell! About forty feet from the parapet of the cathedral,’ explained the coroner grimly.

  The gaunt monk looked amazed. ‘Forty feet? It’s a wonder he wasn’t killed!’

  ‘It’s not a wonder, it’s a miracle,’ said the senior canon gently. ‘It seems his tunic caught on a projecting waterspout half-way down the wall. A beggar in the Close saw him hanging there for a moment, then the cloth ripped and he fell the rest of the way on to a pile of soft earth dug from a new grave.’

  Saulf crossed himself, which reminded de Wolfe of Thomas. Suddenly a lump came to his throat, as he realised that he would have sorely missed the little man if he had died, in spite of the scorn that he and Gwyn habitually heaped on him.

  ‘How came he to fall from the cathedral? Is he a priest? He always looked like one when I saw him in your company, Crowner – and he had a flair for pen and ink.’

  Again the other two men exchanged glances – they did not want to spread this abroad more than they could avoid, even though Saulf had the double obligation to secrecy of a priest and a healer.

  ‘He was once,’ said de Wolfe evasively. ‘When will he be in a fit state to tell us what happened?’

  The monk shrugged. ‘He’s not too bad now. I’ve other patients to attend, but you can go back in and see if he’s ready to talk, if you wish.’

  The two friends entered the cell again, and by the light of a candle burning below a wooden cross on the wall, squatted one on each side of the straw mattress.

  ‘Thomas, can you hear me?’ asked the coroner.

  The clerk opened one eye. His cheek and forehead were grazed. ‘Yes, Crowner, miserable sinner that I am.’

  John de Alençon laid a hand gently on his other shoulder and Thomas winced with pain. ‘Thomas, tell us what happened,’ he said. ‘This is not the confessional, just your uncle and a good friend wanting to help you.’

  De Peyne opened his other eye and swivelled both towards the Archdeacon. ‘I have committed a mortal sin, Father. I tried to end my life – but I am so useless that I could not even make a success of that.’

  Tears welled up in the bloodshot eyes, and the kindly Archdeacon was moved to pity for his unhappy nephew. ‘I have just told Brother Saulf that your deliverance was a sign from the Almighty that he needs your life on this earth now and not yet in the next.’

  A glimmer of hope appeared on Thomas’s battered features. For such a senior member of the Church to believe that even a minor miracle had been wrought was a life-raft for him in the sea of despair in which he floundered.

  ‘How came this to happen, Thomas?’ asked the coroner, gruffly enough to cover his own emotion.

  The clerk moved slightly in the bed and grimaced as his bruised body screamed in protest. ‘After the Archdeacon called me in and told me that there seemed no hope of my being received back into Holy Orders, I went out thinking that my life was now meaningless and without purpose. I should have let myself perish from starvation when I left Winchester two winters ago.’

  John de Alençon’s ascetic face moved closer to Thomas’s. ‘I had no choice but to tell you the truth as its stands now here in Exeter. That does not mean that elsewhere, in the future, matters might change. Take your deliverance as a sign, Thomas.’

  De Wolfe was more keen to discover what had occurred that evening. ‘Where did you go when you left the canon’s house?’

  ‘I wandered along, then went into St Martin’s to pray.’ This was the tiny church almost opposite the coroner’s house. ‘But I felt nothing, as if my prayers were hitting a stone wall. I felt that God himself had rejected me as a useless, misshapen creature.’ Tears sprang up again and trickled down his damaged cheeks. ‘I ran from there and went into the cathedral. I intended prostrating myself on the chancel steps, to try to seek some sign from our Saviour, but as I neared the quire screen, I saw another sign – an open door in the gloom.’

  ‘A door?’ queried the canon.

  ‘I thought it led into the north tower and I felt the desire to fling myself into oblivion. I ran up the stairs in the thickness of the wall, but after a few turns I came to a locked door, which must have gone further up the tower. An arch to the side of it led on to an outside gallery along the nave.’

  ‘That’s one the builders use,’ confirmed Alençon.

  ‘I looked down, and though the tower rose far above me, it still seemed a long way to the ground, surely sufficient for my purpose. Without further thought, except a plea to God to save my soul, I threw myself off the edge.’

  He made a move as if to cross himself, but the tight blanket and the pain in his arms made him give up the attempt.

  ‘I fell, then there was a great jerk and I slammed against the wall. I thought that was death, but then there was a rending sound and I fell again, into a heap of mud.’ He sobbed and struggled to hide his face in the hard pillow.

  The Archdeacon patted his shoulder, and as Thomas’s eyes turned back to him, the priest made the Sign of the Cross over him and murmured the Latin words of a blessing.

  The clerk seemed to calm himself and closed his eyes, as the canon motioned to de Wolfe to come out of the room.

  ‘We’ll see you in the morning, Thomas,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘Get some sleep to help mend your body and your mind.’

  As they walked together back to the cathedral Close, de Wolfe asked his friend what had transpired from their efforts to have the clerk taken back into the Church.

  ‘I fear it was hopeless – and I also grieve to think that maybe it would have been better for him if neither of us was involved.’

  John was puzzled by his companion’s words. ‘How so?’ he asked.

  ‘As I told you before, this is not a matter for our diocese of Devon and Cornwall, but for the Winchester Consistory Court – although a good recommendation from senior members of the Chapter here would undoubtedly carry weight in Hampshire.’ He paused, choosing his words. ‘Unfortunately, the reverse is also true, in that a denial of his merits from here would ruin any hope of reinstatement. And that is all I got from my dear brothers – a round condemnation of Thomas’s conduct, even though they know little or nothing of the real facts.’

  ‘Why should they blacken some poor fellow who means little to them?’ demanded the coroner.

  ‘Because he is your clerk and my nephew! Neither of us is popular in the Chapter House or the Bishop’s palace. Since that affair a few months ago, when the sheriff was disgraced over his affection for Prince John, mud stuck to a number of ecclesiastics – especially the precentor and, of course, to Bishop Henry Marshal. They have no love for people like me or you, or for our friend the treasurer, as we are all avowed King’s men.’

  De Wolfe, at heart a bluff and perhaps rather naïve soldier, found it hard to believe that educated, professional men of God would be so vindictive. ‘You mean they would block a minor clerk’s career – indeed his happiness and even his life – just to get back at us spitefully for some political difference?’

  The Archdeacon shook his head in wonder at his friend’s apparent trust in human nature. ‘Without blinking an eye, John. When I put the matter to them, their vehemence told me straight away that they relished the chance to confound us.’

  By now they had reached Martin’s Lane and the priest left de Wolfe at his door, with a promise to call at St John’s in the morning to see how his nephew was progressing.

  De Wolfe watched him go, his hand on the latch. For a moment, he contemplated going to the Bush, to see whether there was any truth in Matilda’s jibe about Nesta and Alan, but a stubborn streak of pride won the day and, with a deep sigh, he opened the door and went in.

  While the drama was being played out at the cathedral, Matthew Knapman and his assistant Peter Jordan were seeking legal advice. They were visiting Peter’s father-in-law, Robert Courteman, at his house in Goldsmith Street, which was off the high street near the Guildhall.r />
  Courteman was the lawyer who handled the affairs of the Knapman tin business, including Matthew’s sale and transport operations. He was a gloomy-looking man of fifty, with a pate as bald as any monk’s tonsure on top, but rimmed with bushy iron-grey hair. His narrow face was lined and two deep furrows on each side of his mouth and folds of lax skin under his chin gave him the appearance of a hound with permanent indigestion.

  Courteman received his visitors in his office chamber, a cubicle partitioned from the living hall of his narrow house, appropriately as gloomy as his humourless self. A table was scattered with rolls of parchment and vellum, tied with tapes of plaited wool or leather. Shelves were loaded with dusty documents and a few books. The lawyer sat on a stool behind his table and the other two men perched on a short bench opposite. At Robert’s side stood his son and junior partner, Philip Courteman, a younger version of his father, with the same sombre look on his pallid face.

  The lawyers had already heard of the death of their client Walter Knapman, and the lengthy commiseration had been completed, though Matthew suspected that the sorrow they expressed was for the potential loss of his business.

  ‘As you might guess,’ said Matthew, ‘the suddenness of his demise has greatly disturbed our business activities. Tin is being produced as usual, but we need to know who it belongs to, for purposes of sale and disposal. We are like a ship without a rudder at present.’

  ‘And we want to be reassured that the workings will remain together, not be broken up,’ cut in Peter Jordan. ‘There are people waiting like wolves around a sheepfold to seize any opportunity to ravage us – Stephen Acland for one, though others would like to bid piecemeal for the dozen or so stream-works and blowing-houses.’

  The older lawyer steepled his fingers against his lips and managed to look more miserable than usual. ‘What do you want from me? There’s little enough I can do at this early stage.’ He looked up at his pasty-faced son, as if to seek his agreement to their legal impotency.

  ‘There may be difficult problems in this situation,’ said the younger man obscurely.

  Matthew sounded impatient: ‘Every day’s uncertainty makes trading more difficult,’ he complained. ‘There has just been a new coinage in Chagford, and I have a large quantity of metal ready for the second smelting and sale. I need to know for whom I am selling.’

  Robert Courteman spread his hands as if in benediction. ‘I can appreciate the problems, Matthew, but it is too soon for answers.’

  ‘But we need to know what is in his will as soon as possible,’ said Peter, impatient at the lawyer’s torpid attitude.

  ‘And even if there is a will,’ snapped Matthew in frustration.

  Courteman shook his head slowly. ‘I cannot divulge the contents of a last testament, not until the proper circumstances arrive.’

  ‘And what might they be, for God’s sake?’ asked the dead man’s twin.

  ‘All the family together, everyone who might benefit. They are entitled to hear it from the lawyer’s own lips, not second-hand after it has been divulged piecemeal to all and sundry.’

  Matthew grunted in disgust. ‘We’re not all and sundry, Robert. I’m his twin brother, and Peter is the nearest thing to a son that Walter had. At least you can confirm that there is a will – and when it was last altered, if it has been?’

  The elder Courteman pursed his lips. ‘I’m not sure I can even do that, Matthew. The relations between a lawyer and his client are as sacred as those between a priest and sinner, you know.’

  ‘God’s bones, Robert, we are all one family here! Your own daughter is married to Peter, so what affects his future affects hers too.’

  Courteman wagged his head slowly from side to side, his wattles swaying under his chin. ‘One cannot let personal issues sway the sacred trust of our profession, Matthew,’ he uttered sententiously. ‘However, I will venture so far as to tell you that there is indeed a last will and testament to which Walter Knapman appended his mark in front of me as a witness, and that I will be disclosing its contents to the assembled family, principally his lawful wife Joan, in the very near future.’

  ‘How near?’ demanded Peter Jordan. ‘Does this mean another journey to Chagford?’

  ‘No, I have had a message that the widow is coming to Exeter very shortly, together with her mother and brother. I will inform you when the testament will be read, so that you can arrange to be present. If the widow wishes it, it may even be tomorrow.’

  And with that the impatient pair had to be content.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  In which Gwyn of Polruan gets into deep trouble

  Friday, the fifteenth of April, dawned grey and cold on Dartmoor, as if the spring was making up for the relatively mild winter by being spitefully unseasonable. Snow covered the moors, and even in the greener valleys around the edges of the huge wasteland the new buds and peeping flowers were powdered with white. The lowering grey clouds threatened more snow to come, and as Gwyn of Polruan rode his mare down from Wibbery’s manor barton to the town, a few flakes fluttered on the wind that moaned softly around him. The big Cornishman pulled up the hood of his tattered leather shoulder cape and plodded on philosophically, inured to the weather of a dozen countries after years of campaigning.

  He was not clear as to why the coroner had left him in Chagford, but for some reason John de Wolfe wanted an eye kept on the tinners and the sheriff until they had all dispersed after the coinage. Judging from the amount of metal left for assaying last evening, Gwyn estimated it would finish by the middle of the day and then he could turn for home and hearth, to be with his wife and children in St Sidwell’s.

  There was a livery stable at the near end of the high street and there Gwyn left his mare, knowing that the coroner would reimburse him the halfpenny that shelter and forage would cost. He walked on to the square and, for the next hour or so, stood idly watching the coinage process as it worked its way through the diminishing piles of black tin ingots. Although many miners had already left Chagford after their bars had been coined, there were still plenty of men around and the alehouses were full, as Gwyn discovered when his insatiable hunger and thirst drove him to the Crown for relief. As the coroner had ordered, he eavesdropped on as many conversations as possible and gossiped with a number of men, using his boyhood experience in Cornwall with his father to masquerade as another tinner. However, his efforts produced nothing new, only repetition of anger against Richard de Revelle’s clinging to the Wardenship, complaints about the rate of coinage tax, and the widespread conviction that Aethelfrith the Saxon had been behind Henry’s death and the damage to their tin-workings.

  When Gwyn came out of the tavern, the snow had increased markedly. A keen east wind was driving it into little drifts against walls and hedges and the ground was already covered to a depth of a couple of inches. As he tramped back over to the square to see the last of the coinage, his riding boots squeaked hollows into the fresh snow and white flakes lodged in his great moustache.

  Under the cover of the enclosure, the assay master and the Controller toiled away with the Steward and Receiver to finish the work, so that they and the tinners might leave for home before the moor became impassable. Another hour went by before the sheriff put in an appearance, together with Geoffrey Fitz-Peters from Lydford. They had stayed in the warmth and comfort of de Prouz’s castle at Gidleigh until Richard de Revelle calculated that the coinage was nearing its end and he could put in a final appearance with the least personal discomfort.

  As they all stood watching, and listening to the monotonous rhythm of the hammer, chisel and chanting of the clerks as they repeated the weight and quality of each ingot, Gwyn became gradually aware of a different, more distant noise. Above the undulating soft whistle of the wind, he heard a distant growling. As the minutes went by, it strengthened into the shouting of an angry crowd.

  Now the heads of those around him began to lift, as they also sensed the approaching tumult. Even the coinage team stopped work to listen.
With the hammering quieted, the shouts of a mob became clear and Gwyn saw the sheriff stiffen and motion to Sergeant Gabriel to bring his men-at-arms closer into the coinage shelter. Only half a dozen soldiers remained: Ralph Morin had left at dawn for Exeter with the rest of the men, not wishing to leave Rougemont Castle bereft of its garrison. With many others, Gwyn stepped out into the swirling snowflakes and began to walk up to the top of the square, where he could look down the street to where the yelling rabble was rapidly approaching.

  A crowd of men, perhaps thirty in number, was milling along the manor road, clustered around someone in the centre. As they came nearer, it was clear that they were all tinners, both from their dress and the threatening way they were yelling abuse at whoever was being dragged along among them. Snow plastered their cloaks and hoods, which suggested that they had come down from the high moor, but in their anger and excitement they were oblivious of the weather.

  Gabriel appeared alongside him, sent by the sheriff to see what was happening. ‘What in hell is going on, Gwyn?’ he muttered, looking at the approaching mob, who were dragging a man on the end of a rope.

  ‘I don’t know, but I don’t like the look of it.’

  As the mass of men neared the square, the tinners who had just left the coinage were joined by many more flooding out of the alehouses, attracted by the uproar. Some were the worse for drink only half-way through the morning. They shouted questions to the mob, whose answers caused many more to merge into the swirling mass. By the time the crowd turned into the square, there were almost a hundred heads bobbing around, pushing and shoving to see the hapless captive in the centre.

  ‘You’d better do something about this, Gabriel – and quick!’ growled Gwyn.