The Awful Secret

by Bernard Knight

  John whistled through his teeth. ‘A wreck and a killing? Both of those are crowner’s business, Gwyn. Any more details?’

  The big man shook his shaggy red head. ‘The messenger knew little. He had been riding since noon yesterday. The body was found the night before, it seems.’

  The coroner lifted a gloved hand to rub the bridge of his beaked nose, a mannerism he had that seemed to aid thought, much as Gwyn scratched his groin and Thomas crossed himself when agitated. ‘A dead man on a ship means either mutiny or piracy. We must go and discover which.’

  His officer looked concerned. ‘The north coast is a long way on the back of a nag when you have a poorly leg, Crowner. Let me go in your stead.’

  The coroner leaned across and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Not nearly so far as Palestine, man! We’ll set off within the hour and take it easily. We can get to Crediton by nightfall, find a night’s rest there and get an early start to Barnstaple in the morning.’

  The Cornishman still looked doubtful. ‘Your good lady’s not going to like it, you being away for at least three days.’

  But de Wolfe was rejuvenated by the prospect of a return to activity and was in no mood for Matilda’s strictures. ‘To hell with her grumbling, Gwyn! Go and tell that little turd of a clerk to meet us on his pony at the North Gate by the fourth bell.’

  He touched Odin’s flanks with his heels and wheeled him around, heading back for the walls. ‘And bring some food and drink in your saddle pouch. It’s a long ride to Ilfracombe.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  In which Crowner John inspects a corpse

  All the next day the coroner’s trio rode steadily across the county, following the main track north-west from Copplestone, about thirteen miles from Exeter, where they had spent the night bedded down around the hearth at the small manor house. The weather remained chill but dry, and the going underfoot was good. The winter mud had hardened, but not yet dried into the dusts of summer. The bushes and trees alongside the narrow road were budding into the first signs of spring, and a few primroses and violets lurked in the undergrowth on this tenth day of March.

  Though he would not admit it, by midday de Wolfe’s leg had begun to ache, from jolting incessantly in the stirrup, but he had suffered far worse after two major and countless minor injuries in past campaigns. Even so, he was glad when Gwyn suggested then that the horses needed a rest, some water and half an hour’s grazing. They had been on the road since first light and even at the modest pace set by John’s leg and Thomas’s pathetic riding, they had covered almost twenty miles. Now in the valley of the Taw, they were well over half-way to Barnstaple.

  In a clearing just before the forest gave way to strip-fields near the manor of Chulmleigh, they slid thankfully from their saddles and hobbled the horses, letting them crop the short new grass that was now appearing after winter. A stream nearby offered men and beasts the chance to slake their thirst. Thomas, who rode his moorland pony side-saddle like a woman, staggered about, holding his backside and complaining about long journeys, which he detested.

  ‘Come on, dwarf,’ teased Gwyn, grabbing the clerk by his waist and holding him kicking and yelling in the air. ‘Forget your sore buttocks and get us some bread and cheese from that bag.’

  They were soon seated on a tree-stump, eating heartily and drinking from a leather flask filled with coarse cider. Even if the little ex-priest hated travelling, the coroner and his henchman were glad to be out on the road again: they had shared thousands of leagues over the past two decades, in Ireland, France and the Levant.

  ‘We’ve made better time than I expected,’ growled de Wolfe, between mouthfuls of hard crusts, even flintier cheese. ‘At this rate, we’ll not need to stop on the road tonight. We can be in Barnstaple by dark and claim a bed from Oliver de Tracey.’

  ‘And ten or twelve miles to Ilfracombe tomorrow,’ added Gwyn, sucking cider from the sides of his luxuriant whiskers. Even keeping down to a brisk walk or occasional trot, they could cover four or five miles in an hour without overly tiring the horses.

  All that afternoon the three moved steadily northward, passing slow ox-carts and flocks of sheep, then a number of pilgrims and pedlars, as well as journeymen moving between employment with their tools slung in a bag across their shoulders. De Wolfe forgot the cares of life in Exeter, especially the moody and grim Matilda. He had even forgotten the mysterious face that had been peering at him around street corners.

  As it grew dusk, they found themselves at the estuary of the river Taw, with the port and borough of Barnstaple on the eastern side, some five miles inland from the open sea. Thomas, who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of history, informed his uninterested companions that the burgesses held a dubious claim to the oldest charter in England, granted by the Saxon king Athelstan, although certainly the first King Henry had given them a new Norman one.

  As the light faded, the trio rode thankfully through the gate, just beating the curfew, and made their way to the castle. This had a small tower on top of a motte, which in recent years had been rebuilt in stone, in place of the original timber donjon. Around it was a triangular bailey inside a curtain wall that stood not far from where the small Yeo stream joined the Taw. The hall was a wooden building inside the bailey, the tower being a place for defence, too small for peacetime living quarters.

  It was here they found the seneschal, the chief steward to the lord, and learned that Oliver de Tracey was away on a tour of his manors. However, the seneschal, a wizened old man called Odo who had looked after his lord’s affairs for a quarter of a century, made them welcome. De Wolfe had been to the town several times in his capacity as coroner since the premature death of Fitzrogo and had had dealings with Odo before. The old steward seemed impressed with this new legal officer, partly because he admired de Wolfe’s reputation as a Crusader and his close acquaintance with the Lionheart.

  Gwyn and Thomas were sent off to the kitchens for a meal, with the promise of a pallet of clean straw in the servants’ quarters, whilst John was offered a chamber in the hall, which had a low bed and mattress, luxury indeed for such a remote place as Barnstaple.

  ‘As my lord and his family are away, we have no formality in the hall tonight,’ explained Odo. ‘But there are a few knights doing their service here with their squires, as well as the constable, the priest, some travellers and a few clerks, so you are welcome to sup with us in an hour’s time.’

  With a dozen men eating and drinking in the flickering lights of wall flares and tallow dips on the table, de Wolfe spent a pleasant evening listening to and telling tales of past battles, skirmishes and ambuscades. As the ale and wine went down, the stories became more adventurous and far-fetched, but this was a life that he loved, the companionship of strong men and witty minds. At intervals, they were entertained by a pair of travelling musicians, who had arrived by ship from Neath across the Severn Sea, on their way to Cornwall. They earned their meal and mattress by some accomplished playing on pipgorn and crwth, Welsh wind and stringed instruments.

  John took the opportunity to catch up with events in Wales; seven years earlier he had accompanied Archbishop Baldwin around the country on his recruiting campaign for the Third Crusade – in which the Archbishop himself had perished outside Acre. Speaking in his mother’s native Welsh to the minstrels, he learned that the endless feud between Welsh and Normans was in a quiet phase. He even had news of his friend Gerald, Archdeacon of Brecon, who had been with them on the famous journey around Wales and was now apparently writing a book on the events.

  But the business of the day was not forgotten; it had been Odo who had sent the messenger to Exeter the previous day.

  ‘The manor reeve from Ilfracombe came here the day before yesterday seeking my bailiff, as your new coroner’s law demands,’ Odo said. ‘He had news of this dead man found aboard ship the night before.’

  De Wolfe wanted details, but Odo had little more to tell him. ‘It seems a wrecked vessel was driven ashore somewhat to the east of
Ilfracombe. On it, lashed to the deck by ropes, was a corpse with undoubted wounds from a sword or knife – certainly not injuries from the shipwreck. That’s about all he could tell us, so I sent word to you. We have been told that now the crowner must deal with all suspicious and violent deaths.’

  ‘And wrecks of the sea, as well,’ added John.

  This was news to Odo, and as de Wolfe explained, the group of men around the table listened with interest. Some had never heard of the new office of coroner and the rest were hazy as to his functions. ‘Last September, at the General Eyre in Kent, the royal justices proclaimed an edict from Hubert Walter, our Chief Justiciar and Archbishop of Canterbury, which had several purposes,’ explained de Wolfe.

  ‘The main purpose seems to be to screw more taxes from the population!’ growled one of the knights, who was working off some of his annual service to Oliver de Tracey in return for his manorial holding.

  De Wolfe shrugged, conscious that this was the general perception of Hubert Walter’s harsh taxation regime. ‘Better an honest coroner than a corrupt sheriff,’ he grunted. ‘I name no names, but it is common knowledge that most of the sheriffs in England are more concerned with lining their own purses than with upholding the King’s peace in their counties. Why else would so many nobles pay large sums to secure appointment to that office?’

  Heads nodded around the table, for they remembered the scandal in the time of old King Henry, when all the sheriffs were dismissed for corruption – though almost all had seemed to claw their way back into favour.

  ‘But what has that do with dead bodies and wrecks?’ asked one of the Welshmen. Apart from a few franchise coroners in Glamorgan and Pembroke, the Normans’ rule of law did not extend to most of Wales.

  ‘King Richard’s ransom was a heavy burden on England,’ explained de Wolfe. ‘One hundred and fifty thousand marks were demanded by Henry of Germany to release the Lionheart. This, together with the expense of the Crusades and his present wars against Philip of France, creates a need for every penny that our Justiciar can raise. It is where the coroner comes into the picture, to raise what legitimately belongs to the king’s treasury.’

  ‘Just another bloody clutch of taxes!’ grumbled another knight.

  John took a gulp of his wine and nodded in agreement. ‘Taxes, like death and our wives, are always with us!’ he exclaimed. ‘Yet there are other advantages. The coroners now divert many lawsuits to the king’s courts instead of leaving them to the mercy of the sheriffs’ and burgesses’ courts, whose ideas of justice are primitive. We record all serious crimes and accusations for presentation to the royal judges when they arrive at the Eyre of Assize in each county. Our very title of coroner comes from custos plactitorum coronae – keeper of the pleas of the Crown.’

  This was beyond one of the castle clerks, though perhaps the amount of beer he had drunk was slowing his wits. ‘But what has this to do with dead bodies or wrecks?’ he complained.

  ‘There are many ways of raising revenue for the king. Any fault of the community in failing to report a sudden death, to raise the hue and cry, or the death of any who cannot be proven to be Saxon – as well as rapes, assaults and other felonies – these lead to amercements, all grist to the Treasury. I have to attend every execution and see that the property of the hanged felon is seized for the Crown. If there is a wreck of the sea, then this also belongs to the king, as do catches of royal fish, the whale and sturgeon.’

  For another hour, there was endless argument, lubricated by wine, ale and cider, about the morality of taxation, but it was all good-natured and de Wolfe defended his monarch’s right-hand man, Archbishop Hubert Walter, in his need to extract as much money from the population as was bearable. Eventually, the minstrels played another tune and sang another song, and as the rush-lights burned low, the audience staggered off to their various chambers or sought their straw palliasses around the glowing embers of the fire in the Great Hall.

  After a good breakfast early next morning, Sir John de Wolfe thanked Odo for his hospitality and, with his officer and clerk, set out for Ilfracombe. The main road curved westward along the estuary until it struck north-east to the coast, but there was a shorter, more direct route over the hills due north from Barnstaple through the village of Bittadon. The seneschal recommended this: although it was sometimes plagued by roving outlaws from the fringe of Exmoor, it saved a few miles’ riding. The coroner and his brawny henchman were veteran campaigners and had little fear of wayside ambush – their heavy broadswords and Gwyn’s fighting axe were sufficient to see off anyone other than a substantial band of men. However, Thomas rode in a perpetual state of anxiety, his beady eyes forever scanning the roadside for attacking ruffians, but the journey passed without incident.

  A few hours later, they had covered the ten miles to the north coast and were jogging down the hill into Ilfracombe. The little port nestled between jagged cliffs, the harbour hidden behind a rocky prominence. The north-westerly breeze was strong and a line of white breakers hurled themselves against the craggy, indented shore. Ahead in the far distance, the hills of Wales could just be seen in the haze.

  ‘Who does this place belong to?’ asked Gwyn, as they trotted down towards the twisted street that led to the beach.

  ‘The Bishop of Coutances owns the land, as he does a great slice of the county,’ piped up the clerk, anxious to display his knowledge, especially when it concerned churchmen. ‘But he sub-let it to Robert of Pontecardon many years ago and then it passed to Robert Fitzroy’s family as tenants.’

  ‘Damn who it belongs to,’ gruntedde Wolfe. ‘Let’s just find the reeve. He was the one who sent to Barnstaple with the news of this corpse.’

  A substantial village and port like Ilfracombe would normally have had a resident bailiff, a more senior servant of the manorial lord, but Odo had told them that he had recently died of an apoplexy, and until Fitzroy or his steward appointed a new one, the manor reeve was having to cope with the administration. As they trotted down the only street, a dozen curious villagers appeared to gape at the strangers. The harbour was a sandy cove protected on the seaward side by a long peninsula, called the Benricks, which at the highest tides became an island. The outer end rose to a hill, on which was a low tower carrying a signal brazier to direct ships into the harbour. A score of buildings clustered around the harbour, ranging from a few stone-built houses to rickety hovels made of turf. The roofs were mostly thatched, but the larger dwellings had heavy stone slates, better to resist the foul weather that blew so often into this Atlantic mouth of the Severn Sea.

  There were a couple of storehouses and fish-sheds at the head of the beach and several fishing boats were drawn up above the tide-line. Leaning against the single quay, listing until the water floated it again, was a merchant vessel with a stumpy mast. A procession of labourers was filing across a plank to the shore, carrying sacks of lime on their backs.

  A few yards from the quayside, de Wolfe halted Odin and called down to a young woman, who was gawping open-mouthed at the new arrivals. She had a baby at her breast, the infant naked in spite of the keen wind that ruffled the poor wench’s rags. ‘Where can we find the reeve, girl?’ boomed the coroner.

  Wide-eyed at the revelation that this great dark stranger from another world spoke her language, the young mother pointed wordlessly at a stone house directly opposite, then turned tail and ran away, the baby’s lips still clamped to her bosom.

  By now, more inhabitants had gathered to peer at the new arrivals, and from them, a stocky middle-aged man with a large moustache and a square brown beard stepped forward. ‘You must be the crowner, sir. I am Matthew, the manor reeve. I’ve been expecting you.’

  John recognised him for a sensible, reliable man, which was more than could be said for some reeves, who often seemed high-grade idiots. The manor reeve was at the bottom of the pecking order of officials in the feudal system, responsible for the day-to-day organisation of the village farm work. Although all but the stewards were illit
erate, the reeves kept account of village business – crops, stock, tithes and work rotas – by means of notched tally-sticks and their memories.

  With half the population following at a respectful distance, the reeve led them across to the bailiff’s house, which he was occupying for the time being. A boy took their horses to the backyard to be fed and watered and they went into the building. It had the luxury of two rooms, though they were bare of any comfort, apart from a few benches and stools grouped around the fire on the beaten earth floor in the centre of the smaller room. Piles of bracken and hay lay against the walls, forming the sleeping quarters for the reeve’s wife and four children. The other room was the kitchen and dairy, which was shared with a cow and three orphaned spring lambs.

  Matthew’s wife brought them bread, meat and ale, and they sat around the clay-lined fire-pit where burning logs threw a blue smoke into the atmosphere.

  ‘The cadaver is in one of the fish sheds over on the quay,’ explained the reeve. He had a handsome face, albeit scarred by cow-pox, with a moustache that almost matched Gwyn’s in size.

  ‘How did you come by this corpse?’ demanded the coroner.

  Matthew leaned forward, his roughened hands on the knees of his serge breeches. ‘A boy up on the headland above the harbour saw this derelict vessel out to the east, no sail upon her and obviously going to be driven ashore. A gang of us set out at once to find where she would beach, in case we could save any souls.’

  Gwyn, who came from a fishing village himself, strongly suspected that they would have been more interested in saving cargo and gear than souls, but kept these cynical thoughts to himself.

  ‘We went across the cliffs, but the vessel had been blown further up towards Combe Bay, and by the time we had walked that distance, she had struck on Burrow Nose, near Watermouth. It was almost dark, but we found her wedged in a gully. She was not too badly damaged, but by the next day, she had broken up with the pounding of the tide.’