The Sanctuary Seeker

by Bernard Knight

  John nodded. ‘But the great question is, how did he die? And why is his body up here, in this God-forsaken place? And how long has it been here?’

  Gwyn had no answers. Then he spotted something and bent again to put a hand inside the front opening of the corpse’s jerkin. He pulled out a small crucifix, made of some base metal like tin or pewter but of a complex design and good craftsmanship. Thin wires were wrapped around the shank of the cross, like crude filigree work. It was held on a leather thong around the neck and Gwyn tried to lift it free from the body for a better look. The shrunken head was flexed with the chin on the chest and Gwyn lifted it to free the thong.

  ‘Look there, at the neck,’ said the coroner.

  Gwyn took off the thong, but held back the head to expose the front of the throat. The skin there had been protected from the elements and was white with a tinge of green. Across the throat, almost from ear to ear, was a wide slash, exposing the Adam’s apple, the muscles and vessels of the neck.

  ‘A cut throat, for a start,’ said John sombrely. There was a strong bond between all those who had made the arduous journey to the Holy Land to fight the defilers of Jerusalem, and it saddened him to think that two had survived the often lethal rigours of the journey and the campaign only to be slaughtered like beasts on their return to their homeland.

  With the shepherd boy watching, wide-eyed, John and Gwyn struggled to undress the body to examine the clothing and the skin surface for other clues. On both arms, and across the chest, were thin lines of hard scar tissue, typical of long-healed war wounds – both Gwyn and the coroner carried similar signs of sword and lance combat on their own limbs.

  When they moved the body, they found beneath it an empty sheath, but there was no sign of the dagger it had once held. They rolled it over, an easy task as it had shrivelled to half its original weight. On the brown wrinkled skin of the back, there was something that raised the eyebrows of both the coroner and his attendant. Just to the left of the spine, whose knobs corrugated the stretched skin, was a one-inch slit, sharp at the lower end, blunt and slightly notched at the upper extremity. John stared at the wound, then at Gwyn. ‘Same wound, same place,’ he observed.

  They let the body slump back to the ground, as Gwyn made a cautious response. ‘Many a man gets stabbed in the back – and most knife blades are much of a muchness, so the slits are similar.’

  John stood up straight and stretched his aching back. ‘Two men on Dartmoor, both with Levantine accoutrements, both stabbed in the back within a few weeks of each other. Is that coincidence?’

  Gwyn held his peace.

  Unlike de Bonneville’s, this man’s clothing seemed intact, although the inside of the leather jerkin, the undertunic and shift were blackened by dried blood, which had poured from the arteries and veins of the slashed neck. A small slit in the back of the clothing corresponded with the stab wound, which did not appear to have bled much.

  Under the cap, they found an area of crushed, bloodied scalp, though the cap itself had not been penetrated. The blond hair was cropped short.

  ‘He was struck a heavy blow with some blunt object,’ was John’s opinion. ‘Enough to make him lose his senses and not resist having his throat cut … though maybe, by then, he had also been stabbed in the back.’

  ‘Another unexpected, cowardly attack?’ suggested Gwyn.

  John raised his stooped shoulders in a gesture of doubt. ‘That Fitzhai fellow said that de Bonneville was travelling alone in Honiton. And we have no idea how long this corpse has lain here, though I have no doubt that he died weeks before de Bonneville. So what connection can there be?’

  The ginger-whiskered Cornishman looked again at the gaunt cadaver. ‘No one could identify this fellow by his face, that’s for sure. And if his clothing and property are from Outremer, they will be unfamiliar to anyone here at home.’

  ‘There’s this crucifix, though … It looks like Cornish tin.’ The coroner rolled up the thong and placed the ornament in his pouch. ‘It’s the best we have. Someone may recognise it. You had better bundle up his clothing and that dagger sheath as well – at least they don’t stink like the last one.’

  As they walked to where Thomas was holding their horses, the coroner dwelt on his administrative duties. ‘We must get an inquest over with today, I can’t ride all the way out here again tomorrow.’ There was no sun, but he looked up at the sky to see where the clouds were lightest, reckoning that it was not yet noon. ‘Thomas, go down straight away with those shepherds to that village – what was it called?’

  ‘Sampford Spiney, according to the North Hall steward.’

  ‘Get them to send a cart up for the body – take it to the church there. Tell the clerk to raise a dozen souls for a jury and we’ll get the man’s pathetic remains put underground after a quick inquest – although with idiots like these living around here, it seems a waste of time. We’ll learn precious little from them.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  In which Crowner John meets the Bishop

  The coroner spent that night sleeping on the floor of his own hall in the house in St Martin’s Lane. He got home just before the city gates were closed at dusk, having ridden hard from the futile inquest on the second body. When he got back, Mary fed him at the long table in the hall, whispering to him that the mistress had been shut in her room all day.

  Dog-tired, he trudged up the outside stairs, resigned to facing Matilda’s icy sulks, but when he pushed the door of the solar, it would not budge. He shoved harder, but it was barred on the inside. He hammered on the door, getting angrier by the second. He called and battered so hard on the stout panels that his neighbour, Godfrey Fitzosbern, a silversmith and master of his guild came out on the step of his own upper chamber.

  Fuming, John reluctantly climbed downstairs and sought out Mary in the kitchen. ‘She’s locked me out, damn her eyes!’

  The serving woman shrugged. ‘She’s been working up to it for days. You not coming home for three days and two nights has tipped her over the edge.’

  ‘Am I to leave her, Mary?’

  The maid shook her head calmly. ‘No, it’ll all blow over. She’s too fond of being the wife of the King’s Crowner. She’d never survive the sneers of the other fine ladies. Sit tight a while and she’ll come round.’

  ‘So where can I sleep tonight, now that she has deprived me of my own bed?’ he complained.

  Mary stood with her hands on her hips and spoke to him like a mother to her whining child. ‘Not with me, that’s for sure! You’ve got a choice. You can go to the Bush and creep under the blanket with your mistress or you can bed down in your own hall. At least it’s a roof over your head. Given the state your wife’s in, I’d suggest staying here, unless you want another week or two banned from your own bedchamber.’

  John saw the sense of this and Mary brought him a spare straw palliasse from the store and laid it in front of the hearth. She stoked the fire with large logs, and threw a blanket over the mattress and a rolled-up cloak for a pillow. ‘I expect you’ve slept in worse places in Palestine and Austria,’ she declared, with what John thought was a lack of feeling. But he sank gratefully into the makeshift bed, pulled the blanket over him and was snoring within ten minutes.

  Next morning, he felt obliged to report to the sheriff. Much as John disliked him, he knew that he must keep the man informed of this most recently discovered killing, especially as it might concern another Crusader. After a solitary breakfast, he trudged up to the castle and squelched across the ever-muddy inner bailey to the keep. He climbed the steps above the undercroft to reach the central doorway, men-at-arms and sundry hurrying minions stepping aside respectfully for him.

  The sergeant on guard at the inner door to the sheriff’s chamber told John that Sir Richard was already closeted with someone from the cathedral, so with ill grace he paced the flagstoned floor.

  In the crowded main hall, business was as brisk as usual, clerks at tables around the edge writing at dictation for sup
plicants who wanted some cause heard before the county court or some personal favour from the sheriff. Knights ambled about, looking lost without a local war or even a Crusade to divert them, and their squires, local landowners, merchants and guild masters sought contracts, curried favours or gossiped. One of these was his neighbour, a dissipated middle-aged man with a reputation for drink and wenching. John disliked him heartily and avoided him, to the annoyance of Matilda who was flattered by Godfrey Fitzosbern’s lewd compliments when they met outside their house-fronts. He was a person of substance and influence in Exeter, being Master of the Guild of Silversmiths. His first words did not endear him to the coroner. ‘What the devil was all that shouting on your stairway last night, de Wolfe? Did your buxom wife have her lover in there, eh?’

  John muttered something under his breath and turned his back on Fitzosbern, a coarsely handsome man, now going rapidly to seed. He wandered off, impatient at the continued delay, pushing through the crowd until he saw Ralph Morin, the constable. John approved of him as a sensible, moderate man. Morin had been appointed by the King, not dependent on local politics for his office. Rougemont Castle was under the control of the Crown, a wise move made years ago when all the West Country was rashly given to Prince John as his own private kingdom. The castle was retained outside this grant and when Coeur de Lion over-generously forgave John for his sins the previous year, the Justiciar persuaded him to keep the major castles in his own hands.

  As he waited on de Revelle’s pleasure, John chatted to Rougemont’s constable, which at least helped pass the time. Then Morin said something that jolted the coroner’s attention. ‘That fellow our sergeant brought back from Honiton a few days ago. I see you have him already in the castle gaol.’

  John stared at him. ‘You mean Alan Fitzhai, the man from Palestine?’

  ‘Yes, I assumed it was your order that committed him.’

  ‘Not at all. I’ve been in the countryside these past few days.’

  The constable shrugged. ‘Then it must have been the sheriff. You can ask him yourself – it looks as if he’s free at last.’

  Grimly, John strode to the door of de Revelle’s chamber, where the guard had beckoned him to enter.

  He was already talking as he walked up to the table, behind which sat his brother-in-law. ‘Why have you clapped Fitzhai into gaol?’ he demanded.

  ‘Because he is the prime suspect in this foul killing,’ replied Richard smoothly.

  ‘There is no evidence of that,’ snapped the coroner. ‘Nothing further has come to light since we spoke with him the other morning. Why lock him up now?’

  De Revelle sighed dramatically and toyed with a sheet of vellum on his table. ‘My dear John, you are basically a soldier, no doubt a very good soldier but naïve in the ways of politics.’

  The coroner scowled and brought his dark head nearer the sheriff. ‘Don’t patronise me, brother-in-law. What are you trying to say?’

  ‘That running a county – or even a country – is like a game of chess or a dance. There are certain set moves and gyrations that have to be made, according to the situation.’

  ‘What the devil d’you mean? Speak plainly.’

  Richard smiled superciliously. ‘Yes, you’re a plain man of plain speech, John. I mean that when persons with power want something done, it is as well at least to make a gesture in that direction.’

  ‘What’s that to do with Fitzhai being in chains?’

  ‘He’s not in chains – yet. Just enjoying our hospitality beneath this building.’ The sheriff stroked his narrow beard. ‘The truth of the matter is, which I did not know until yesterday, that the stricken Arnulph de Bonneville is an old and close friend of our bishop. Although Henry Marshall is usually away from the city, he happens to be here this week to conduct ordinations. He has heard of the murder and is pressing strongly for the malefactor who killed Arnulf’s son to be found and hanged speedily.’

  Light dawned on the coroner. ‘Ah, I see. You need a scapegoat and Fitzhai is the nearest at hand.’

  De Revelle shrugged delicately. ‘He’s the best we have.’

  John threw up his hands in exasperation. ‘There is not a shred of evidence against him.’

  The sheriff smiled gently, as if humouring a child. ‘That need be no obstacle to satisfying powerful men. I need not remind you that our Bishop Henry is brother to William, Marshal of all England … and there are ways of obtaining evidence that I feel inclined to employ.’

  John saw that it was useless to argue with Richard, so he delivered his other news, telling the sheriff about the other murder they had now to investigate. Though it was the sheriff’s own men who had passed on the news of a body on Heckwood Tor, they had not known that the man’s throat had been cut and the matter had been too trivial to report to him. Now he seemed mildly interested, and asked when the man was likely to have been killed.

  ‘Four to six weeks ago, I should say. Impossible to be accurate,’ John replied.

  ‘About the time that Alan Fitzhai came back to England and travelled to Plymouth, maybe across that Dartmoor track. Perhaps we can get him to confess to both murders.’

  John was uneasy: the same thought had occurred to him, but in the absence of any pointer to Fitzhai’s guilt he was not ready to offer up the man as a sacrifice to county politics.

  But the sheriff was not yet finished. ‘I’m glad you came in, John, it saves me the trouble of sending for you.’

  ‘About what?’ John said gruffly, smarting at the sheriff’s still patronising manner.

  ‘I said that the Bishop was concerned about the murder of his friend’s son. Well, he has summoned us both to attend on him to discuss it, at the end of the chapter meeting today. We will be at the cathedral three hours after noon.’

  John’s scowl deepened. ‘Are you going to dance so readily to the tune of these damned clerics?’ he demanded.

  The antipathy of town against Church was never far under the surface. The burgesses of Exeter resented the autonomy of the cathedral Close within the city. Even the sheriff and coroner had no jurisdiction other than to police the roads that traversed it.

  But in this case Richard de Revelle seemed willing to toe the line, for the sake of his own political agenda. The Bishop and the Precentor had supported Prince John against King Richard and the coroner knew that de Revelle’s sympathies had also lain strongly in that direction. John de Wolfe considered them traitors and could not understand why Richard had distributed pardons so readily, even rewarding his brother with favours, instead of throwing him into gaol.

  ‘I trust that you will be there, John,’ the sheriff continued. ‘The Bishop confers regularly with our Archbishop from Canterbury.’ This was a crude reminder that Hubert Walter had appointed John to the coronership.

  ‘I’ll be there, never fear,’ he ground out. ‘If only to see that you don’t show too excessive zeal in prosecuting the law.’

  Henry Marshall, Bishop of Exeter, lived in the shadow of his more famous brother, William, yet he had many worthy attributes of his own and was undoubtedly a more godly priest than many who wore the mitre. He was not primarily a fighting prelate, as was Hubert Walter, who had distinguished himself with a sword at the Crusades. Henry Marshall was an ascetic, who hankered after the true style of priesthood that had existed in Celtic times. Though he lived a life of comparative luxury, it was modest by the standards of most bishops. An example of his deep feelings for the Church was his introduction of the compulsory gift that had to be made every Whitsun by all the households in Devon and Cornwall of a halfpenny to the cathedral – a charitable act that was as popular as snow in August.

  This was the man that Crowner John and his brother-in-law came to visit that afternoon. When they arrived the chapter meeting had just finished and the prebendaries were dispersing. When they, their vicars and acolytes had scurried away, the tall figure of the Bishop emerged, followed by Archdeacon John de Alecon. Behind him was Thomas de Boterellis, the Precentor. They processed from
the chapter house to the adjacent cloisters, and the Archdeacon beckoned the coroner and the sheriff to join them in the calm, colonnaded quadrangle.

  The usual greetings were made and both visitors knelt to kiss the Bishop’s ring. Richard de Revelle did this with flourish and drama, the coroner with grudging resignation.

  Bishop Henry, dressed in his informal robes of a dark cloak over a white cassock, a skull cap on his head, stopped between two arches to look out over the grassy plot. Unlike the close outside, this area was kept clean and tidy.

  ‘This is a bad business, Richard,’ he said, in his thin, high voice, ignoring the coroner for the moment. ‘Arnulph de Bonneville was an old friend. Our families came from the same town in Normandy and we both have interests still in estates there.’

  De Revelle exuded sympathetic concern. ‘Indeed, your grace, it is sad for all concerned. The lord Arnulf is near death, so I understand, and to have his eldest son murdered in this foul way is a cruel blow to a dying father.’

  Hypocrite, thought John. You’ve no concern about the family. All you want is credit for hanging a suspect – any suspect.

  John de Alecon turned to the coroner, determined to bring him into the conversation and to the notice of the Bishop. ‘I understand that you saw Arnulf de Bonneville when you visited Peter Tavy. How did he seem to you?’

  ‘He was half dead – and it would be a mercy if the other half came quickly. Mindless, paralysed and lying in his own mess – that’s no way to delay in leaving this world.’

  ‘God’s will be done,’ said the Bishop piously. ‘None of us can choose the manner of his passing.’ John stayed silent, thinking it indiscrete to mention his idea of a merciful pillow over the face.

  Henry Marshall changed tack abruptly, again speaking directly to the Sheriff. ‘What’s to be done, Richard? It’s intolerable that Norman gentlemen can be massacred in their own county. We need to teach the people a short, sharp lesson.’

  De Revelle tapped the side of his nose. ‘I have a suspect already in the gaol, your grace. I think we need look no further for the culprit than that.’ He omitted to add that his culprit was also a Norman.