‘He is squire to the new lord de Bonneville, for God’s sake!’ retorted the Precentor. ‘The Bishop is livid with anger that you should so upset his friends at the time of their grief.’
John snorted in derision. ‘The King and his ministers and judges have sworn to dispense law and justice without fear or favour, principles set down by the two Henrys … and the Saxon kings before them, for that matter. Are you telling me that there is a different law for the Bishop’s friends?’
There was a pause, as no one wanted to commit himself by answering that question directly, but the Sheriff blustered his way through it. ‘All right, Crowner, you shall have your trial. It shall be tomorrow, to make this poor man’s incarceration as short as possible. Gervaise de Bonneville and his brother rode on your heels to bring us this outrageous news and to complain to the Bishop, who by good fortune is staying in his palace this next week to receive Walter the justiciar. So Henry Marshall will personally attend the court, together with all men of good will who wish to see redress for this shocking thing that you have done.’
He turned and marched out, forgetting even to wish his sister goodnight.
At the third hour after noon the next day, the court hall in the inner bailey of Rougemont Castle was filled to overflowing. Though the sheriff’s weekly court was always busy, either with litigants, witnesses or curious onlookers seeking entertainment, the word had somehow got round that a major confrontation was likely at the trial of Baldwyn of Beer.
The arrival of Bishop Henry Marshall and a bevy of his minions was a bonus for the audience, as no one could remember such senior clerics attending this secular court before. It must be an unusual matter that brought out the Bishop on this damp, cold afternoon.
The proceedings were brief and predictable. Sir Richard de Revelle courteously greeted the Bishop, who wore a long crimson cassock and a skull-cap, and settled him in a large chair at the side of the dais behind which assembled the Precentor, Treasurer, John de Alecon, a few canons and some lesser clergy.
On the other side, Gervaise and Martyn de Bonneville sat on smaller seats, looking strained and annoyed.
The sheriff flopped into his own chair, set squarely in the middle of the platform, with Ralph Morin, several bailiffs, sergeants and a few men-at-arms scattered behind him.
De Revelle cut an impressive figure, in his bright blue tunic with a short green cloak thrown back over one shoulder, fastened on the other with an ornate gold brooch. His black breeches were cross-gartered above stylish shoes with long, pointed toes. Above his hard, tight-lipped mouth, his narrow moustache had been freshly clipped.
John de Wolfe, entitled – indeed, obliged – to be present at every non-ecclesiastical court, stood grimly at the back of the dais, as Thomas de Peyne lurked in the shadows with his pen and parchment.
Gwyn, a wide rag bound with unnecessary prominence around the slight wound on his upper arm, stood on the edge of the crowd near the stage.
The drama began when Baldwyn of Beer marched in from the keep, behind a single helmeted sergeant. Significantly, he had no chains and was not dragged in by a pair of guards, the usual mode of entry for criminals. He stood in front of the sheriff’s judicial seat and folded his arms, looking both defiant and confident.
The court clerk, an older, grey-haired man with the air of a schoolmaster, walked out to the open space in front of the dais to read out the charge from a parchment, itself couched in ambiguous terms. ‘Baldwyn of Beer, squire to Sir Gervaise de Bonneville of the honour of Peter Tavy, you have been accused of being involved in the death of one Aelfgar of Totnes. Do you confess to your guilt?’
Baldwyn stared at the clerk. ‘Of course not. I am not guilty. In fact, I had never heard of the man.’
‘What is the evidence?’ asked the sheriff, in an affectedly bored voice.
Gwyn stepped forward and, in a stentorian voice, related the facts about the dagger missing from the corpse, the knife in Baldwyn’s sheath that did not fit and the identical tear in each scabbard from the damaged blade.
Gervaise stood up and interrupted. ‘What nonsense this is!’ he said, in a tremulous but aggressive voice. ‘Every man in the land has a dagger. Half of them do not fit their sheaths and the other half have a damaged blade. This is but a fairy-tale!’
John pushed through to the front of the platform. ‘This Baldwyn also named the dead man as being from Totnes – yet that name had passed no one’s lips. How could he know that of a man about whose very existence he denied any knowledge?’
Baldwyn looked up, his gaze passing from his master to the Bishop, then back to the sheriff. ‘It must have been said by someone, or how else could I have heard it? I tell you, I know nothing of this man. Why should I? I live in Peter Tavy and rarely leave it, except to accompany my lord Gervaise. Someone dropped the name in my hearing.’
There was a buzz of discussion among the crowd until the Sheriff’s sergeant, prompted by Ralph Morin, banged the stock of his spear on the dais and yelled for quiet.
Gwyn, unperturbed by the denials, finished off his tale. ‘When this Baldwyn was confronted by the evidence, he attempted flight. He assaulted the King’s coroner by pushing him over, then stabbed me in the arm with the dagger he carried.’ He raised his arm and pointed to the thick bandage, which he had rewound that morning so that the bloodstains were visible on the outside.
‘That is the evidence in this case,’ John bellowed, above the renewed murmurings in the hall. ‘Innocent men do not flee, nor stab their accusers as they attempt to escape.’
The sheriff looked disdainfully at the coroner. ‘Are you joining anyone else in your accusations?’
John shook his head. ‘Not at present – not until we have further evidence,’ he added.
Richard de Revelle rose from his chair and went over to the Bishop, who had sat immobile through the proceedings. His austere face, narrow and long-jawed, revealed no emotion as he listened to the sheriff. Then he spoke a few words in a low voice.
The sheriff beckoned to the two brothers from Peter Tavy and all four conferred, with the Precentor and the Treasurer trying to get within earshot. Then the group resumed their seats. When Richard de Revelle was back lolling in his large chair, he addressed the court. ‘We already have a culprit in custody, one Alan Fitzhai, whom the ritual of the Ordeal has already proven guilty of the killing of Hubert de Bonneville. He will be convicted and hanged in due course, when certain procedural difficulties’ – he shot a poisonous glance at the coroner – ‘have been settled. As the deceased in this case seems to have proved to be the squire of Hubert, then it seems logical to assume that the same miscreant killed them both. Thus Fitzhai must be a double murderer, in which case no other culprit need be sought.’
He stared down at Baldwyn of Beer. ‘Even if that explanation was not available, the evidence of this knife scabbard, and the triviality of whether or not the word Totnes was mentioned, is unacceptable for a conviction. As to the charge of assault, it seems only natural that a man so falsely accused should take the only course open to him and try to escape. If he was then assaulted himself by the coroner’s officer, who can blame him for defending himself?’
After this breathtaking distortion of the evidence, the sheriff turned to smirk at his brother-in-law. ‘It is therefore the verdict of this court that no crime has been committed by the defendant and he is therefore discharged. I would also remind certain persons that, by the established legal principle of autrefois aquit, he can never again be arraigned on this same charge.’ He stood to indicate that the proceedings were over, then went over to the Bishop to fuss over his departure from the dais. Gervaise and Martyn jumped down and slapped their squire on the back in congratulation and joined the jostling throng that was making its way out into the rain and mud of the inner bailey.
As John, Gwyn and Thomas were trailing out, they saw the trio from Peter Tavy making their way to the castle keep, where de Revelle was entertaining them to a meal before they went to an inn for the ni
ght, it being too late to set out on the long ride back to their manor. ‘Some justice!’ muttered Gwyn. ‘Depends on who you’ve got for friends.’
John’s lips had been clamped as tight as a rat-trap. He had not been surprised by the farce that he had just witnessed, but the way in which all the evidence had been disregarded almost instantly, with no pretence at considering even the possibility that Baldwyn was guilty, had been even more brazen than he had expected. But with the tenacity of a bull-baiting dog, he refused to contemplate defeat. ‘It’s not over yet, Gwyn. There must be a way of settling this.’
John failed to understand his wife’s attitude to the events surrounding the de Bonneville case. From her virulent antagonism of a week ago, she had subsided into being a reasonable, if distant, house-partner. The intemperate descent of the sheriff and his cronies upon their home the previous evening had upset her far less than John had feared. He thought that she, too, might have turned on him and joined forces with her brother. But Matilda said nothing about it, neither castigating him nor supporting him. After the fiasco of Baldwyn’s trial, he expected that she would wade into him as a trouble-making fool, and went home after the trial in some trepidation. To his surprise and gratification, she merely asked him, in measured tones, what the real truth of the matter might be.
As he explained to her the evidence against the squire Baldwyn, he gained the impression that she was torn between family loyalty to her brother and her loyalty to the King’s coroner, her wedded husband, to whom her personal status was inevitably linked. If he fell, she fell, so he assumed that Matilda was carefully exploring the relative merits of each side in the dispute, perhaps with a view to joining the potential winner. He had been treading carefully since she had allowed him back into her bedchamber, afraid of another rupture in their relationship. Yet sharing her bed meant just that: a comfortable pallet and a good sleep, no marital privileges.
Feeling that he was treading on eggshells, John excused himself from the house after their evening meal, on the grounds that he must talk to Thomas de Peyne about next day’s hangings.
Matilda made no comment and left him to go up to the solar for Lucille to arrange her hair for some function at St Olave’s in the morning.
As soon as she was safely upstairs, John threw a heavy cloak over his shoulders and made his way down to Idle Lane and the Bush tavern.
It was half-way through the evening so he went straight up the wooden stairs to Nesta’s bedroom, having given a discreet wink to old Edwin as he entered. He knew the aged potman would tell the voluptuous innkeeper that he had arrived and was content to flop on to her bed and stare at the dark ceiling until she had a chance to come upstairs. However, due to his discreet entrance, he missed the fact that among the crowd in the main room were not only Gervaise and Martyn de Bonneville with Baldwyn of Beer, but Gwyn of Polruan, still feeding himself extravagantly at a penny a day while his wife was away in Cornwall.
The three from Peter Tavy were staying the night, having taken advice from Ralph Morin that the Bush was the best inn in Exeter. There was no way in which they could cross Dartmoor in the dark and their journey had to wait until daylight.
They were sitting at a table behind the wattle screens where John de Wolfe often rested. Gervaise and his squire were eating and drinking with an enthusiasm that hardly suited their recent bereavement, though the youthful Martyn looked pale and ill-at-ease, picking at his food listlessly. As the potman approached, the younger brother got up and walked away towards the steps to the upper floor, obviously seeking his bed.
Edwin, his whitened blind eye swivelling uselessly as he stomped between the tables, was collecting empty pots. He was far more astute than most patrons gave him credit for and was virtually Nesta’s full-time intelligence officer, sensing trouble-making drunks long before they started fights or smashed the scanty tavern furniture.
As he passed by the table of de Bonneville and his squire, he slowed to collect some jars and to wipe up spilled ale on an adjacent table. His eyesight might not have been good, but his hearing more than compensated for it and he lingered to hear what was said, until Gervaise looked up at him suspiciously and he had to move on. At the back of the room, Edwin dropped his empties into the buckets of murky water and began to fill other jars from the barrels of ale and cider that stood on wedges on a low rack. Nesta bustled up, giving orders right and left to her cook and the two serving girls, who had to provide food and blankets for the brisk trade of overnight guests that was building up. ‘Sir John’s upstairs, mistress, went straight up, he did.’
She nodded, pleased at the news, but busy for the moment. Edwin hesitated, turning off the spigot on the nearest barrel while he spoke in a low voice. ‘Those gentlemen behind the screen … something going on there.’
‘What do you mean, old man?’
He scratched his head with a bony finger. ‘They closed their mouths when they thought I was listening,’ he grunted. ‘They’re the people the Crowner was mixed up with in the Shire Court today. Something odd about them – they’ve got secrets, I reckon.’
The auburn-haired woman thought for a moment, her eyes straying across the large, crowded room. Then one of the maids called to her and Nesta had to go. ‘Keep your ears open, Edwin. Tell Gwyn if anything comes of it.’ She hurried away about her business.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
In which Crowner John surprises the sheriff
It was approaching midnight when the coroner called out to the guards of Rougemont to open the wicket gate and let him in. Even in his excitement at the turn of events, he had had the wit to call at his house on the way from the Bush to the castle, to tell Matilda that he had urgent business that night and not to expect him home until the early hours. He forbore to mention that this business had begun at Nesta’s tavern, but his wife saw from his agitated manner that this was something other than spending the night in some hussy’s bed, so she sleepily nodded in acceptance.
Inside the castle’s inner bailey, John used the full moonlight to hurry across to the keep and again demand entry from two bored sentries sitting at the bottom of the steps. ‘There’ll be four others coming behind me in a few minutes,’ he warned them, as he went up the outer stairs to the first-floor entrance.
Inside, he strode up the two flights of curved narrow steps, built into the thickness of the wall, and came out in the antechamber next to his brother-in-law’s private quarters. On a truckle bed, the sheriff’s chamberlain was snoring like a bull seal and when John kicked him he leaped up and stood trembling in his undershirt, still half asleep and hazily thinking that the castle had been attacked. The single tallow dip guttering on a table made John’s gaunt figure seem like an apparition from hell, until he recognised it as the coroner.
‘I have to see your master – now!’ said John, in a tone that instantly cleared the sleep from the servant’s eyes.
‘It’s not, well, not convenient,’ stammered the man, a middle-aged flunkey who looked after de Revelle’s wardrobe, meals and entertainment.
‘To hell with convenience!’ snarled John, and walked past the timorous custodian to the door of the sheriff’s bedchamber. He gave a peremptory knock but, without waiting for an answer, thrust open the heavy door and walked into a room dimly lit by a couple of candles flickering on a bedside chest.
There was an immediate roar of protest and a muffled scream from the large palliasse on the floor. A bearded figure, naked to the waist, shot up to a sitting position and John could see, too, the head and bare shoulders of a woman. Her profession was declared by her red-painted lips – she certainly bore no resemblance to Lady Eleanor de Revelle, who spent most of her time at their manor in Tiverton: she abhorred her husband’s official residence in Exeter Castle.
‘Get out, damn you!’ yelled the sheriff. The coroner was unmoved by his brother-in-law’s indignation.
‘I need to see you now. In your antechamber in two minutes.’ John went out and slammed the door, to find the servant lighting a ho
rn lantern and several candles. With remarkable speed, the sheriff appeared, wrapped in a coarse blanket. He was bursting with indignation at being disturbed, but John ruthlessly overran his protests. ‘Never mind all that huffing,’ he grated. ‘If you are truly the first law officer in this county, then I demand in the name of the King that you redress the injustice you did today in your court.’
De Revelle’s protests stopped in mid-flow, incredulity at the other’s impertinence momentarily depriving him of speech.
John’s voice was booming again. ‘I have four witnesses arriving downstairs, who will testify to a confession made by Baldwyn of Beer to the murder of Aelfgar.’
The sheriff’s almost manic anger cooled a few degrees, but he was still in a towering rage. ‘The matter is closed, damn you! The man has been acquitted. He cannot be charged or tried again.’
John savoured the moment. ‘But my witnesses also say that he confesses to being involved in the killing of Hubert de Bonneville. He was not charged with that crime today.’ Revel’s emotional temperature dropped even more sharply. ‘Witnesses? What witnesses?’
The coroner jerked a thumb in the direction of the stairway. ‘You’ll soon see when they come up here.’
The sheriff rallied to fight a strong rearguard action. ‘You must be either drunk or witless! You come here in the middle of the night to disturb me …’ He gave a quick furtive glance towards the bedroom, where the whore would be waiting apprehensively. ‘This will cost you your job, John. You come with some maniac story of witnesses. Do you really expect me to take you seriously?’
The coroner was unmoved by his bluster. ‘I have four persons who will separately and together testify – to the King, if needs be – that they heard this miscreant confirm that Hubert’s squire was slain more than a month and a half ago. And, further, that Baldwyn helped to kill Hubert near Widecombe about three weeks ago.’
The Sanctuary Seeker Page 21
