The Manor of Death (24 page)

He rubbed the platter clean with a piece of bread, then stopped with it halfway to his mouth as a sudden thought struck him. 'Surely she hasn't gone back to Polsloe?' he exclaimed. 'She did that last year but soon found the food and raiment not at all to her liking.'

Again Mary shrugged. 'That was last year; she's more desperate now.'

John sighed as he finished his food and drink. 'If you say de Revelle is back at his town house, I'd best go around there and see if Matilda is with him - or whether he knows anything of her.'

A few minutes later he was loping through the busy streets of Exeter, shouldering aside porters struggling under huge bales of wool and dodging men wheeling barrows full of firewood. Swineherds drove fat pigs towards the Shambles for street slaughter, and the raucous voices of stallholders rang out from the booths that lined the roads, selling everything from sausages to shovels. On street corners, barbers shouted invitations for shaves and haircutting - and at Carfoix, the central crossing of the main roads, a villainous-looking fellow waved a pair of pincers, offering to pull any painful teeth. The whole motley throng was part of this vibrant city, thriving on its exports of tin, cloth and wool – even the beggars and vagrants seemed more prosperous than in other towns.

De Wolfe was oblivious to these familiar scenes, his mind full of his own problems, foremost amongst them now being the whereabouts of his wife. Though he could not abide the woman, he was responsible for her well-being and could not ignore the fact that she had disappeared.

His brother-in-law, though he had two large manors in the far west and in the east of the county, had recently bought a house near the North Gate, allegedly for convenience in dealing with various business ventures in the city, one of which was a college in Smythen Street. When his steward ushered John into the solar at the rear of his hall, he was far from pleased to see him. Relations between them, which had always been cool, had hardened into thick ice since Richard had been publicly shamed over the most recent of his misdoings. Yet the coroner's visit seemed not unexpected, as Richard's first words confirmed.

'I suppose you've come enquiring after your grossly misused wife?' he snapped, his pointed beard quivering with indignation.

De Wolfe was in no mood for verbal battles with a man he despised, and he managed to subdue an angry reply. 'I suspect that of late I contributed only a small part to your sister's unhappiness. She is not at home, so do you know where she is?'

'She called yesterday to bid me farewell, as she is entering a nunnery. You have driven her to take the veil, damn you!'

John was only partly surprised, though he thought that her previous attempt to cut herself off from the world had disenchanted her with the idea.

'I presume she has gone to Polsloe again?' he said evenly.

Richard nodded sullenly, piqued that he had not provoked the coroner into a rage. 'She said she never wanted to lay eyes on you again, John!' Then he added in a rare fit of frankness, 'Nor upon me, either!'

There seemed nothing else to say, and de Wolfe turned on his heel and left the house without another word. As he strode back along Northgate Street, his mind was in turmoil, trying to sort out the implications of this news. Would she stay there this time, he wondered? And if so, what was to become of his marriage? Could he get an annulment, given that his friend the archdeacon was dubious about the prospects of success? And if he did, would he be free to marry Nesta? And would she really want him, with her ingrained conviction that a knight and an alehouse keeper were socially incompatible? Could he remain the king's coroner if he did - or even stay on in Exeter? And then what of Gwyn and Thomas, to say nothing of his house, his maid, his horse and his hound?

He growled imprecations under his breath at these troublesome diversions from the need to carry out his coroner's duties and tried to work out a plan of action. Though his first impulse was to ride the short distance to the Priory of St Katherine at Polsloe, as his mind cooled down while he walked through the lanes back to Rougemont he decided to let Matilda stew for a day. If she could walk out on him without a word or so much as a message left behind, then to hell with the woman - why should he scuttle after her like some pageboy or house-lackey? Instead, he directed his feet towards Rougemont and clattered up the wooden stairs into the keep to see the sheriff. He decided not to mention the problem with his wife for the time being, but to try to work out something in relation to the 'Axmouth problem', as he now called it in his mind.

A few moments later, with the inevitable cup of wine in his hand, he sprawled in a leather-backed chair in Henry's chamber, facing the sheriff who sat behind his cluttered table.

'I will have to see Hubert Waiter again, face to face,' he rumbled. 'These outrages have gone on long enough. We cannot have our law officers slain with impunity under our very noses! That way lies anarchy, just as it was years ago in the time of Stephen and Matilda.'

The mention of the last name made him wonder if all Matildas were awkward, aggressive women like his wife, for the old Empress was certainly cast in that mould.

De Furnellis's doleful face, lined and drooping like that of an aged hound, stared at the coroner over the brim of his cup. 'The Justiciar? You'll have to go a long way to find him, John, if you need to confront him quickly.'

'How do you know?' asked de Wolfe suspiciously.

'I had a royal herald here yesterday, dropping off dispatches about the new rate for the county farm for the next half-year.' Henry sounded sour, so John guessed that the Exchequer were again increasing the tax revenue to satisfy the Curia Regis's demand for yet more money to support the king's campaign against Philip of France. 'The herald mentioned that Hubert Walter had sailed from Portsmouth last week for Honfleur and was not expected back in Winchester or London for a month. It seems he has gone to attend Richard at Rouen - perhaps to tell him that he has squeezed all the money out of England that she possesses! '

John banged his empty cup down on the table in annoyance. 'I can't wait another bloody month just to be able to talk to him! I'll have to go there myself and speak to the king if necessary.'

Henry smiled benignly at his friend's impatience. 'You do that, John. The king is beholden to you for your long and faithful service to him - and encouraging you to hang a few tax-dodging bastards will help his budget, so he should be eager to listen to you!'

John was not so sure about his faithful service, as his conscience still plagued him about his failure to prevent the Lionheart's capture in Austria. But perhaps a visit to Rouen might be the chance to exorcise this particular demon. As he contemplated crossing the Channel, a different demon crept back on to his shoulder. If he was to sail for Normandy, then it made sense to use one of his own ships in which to travel, as the three vessels of their wool partnership made frequent crossings. And to arrange this, he would need to go down to Dawlish again to confer with the shipmasters - and as a matter of courtesy to call upon Hilda for her agreement, as three of the vessels had belonged to her, after Thorgils had died. This of course was a blatant fabrication of his mind, as legally the ships were as much his as Hilda's or de Relaga's, but it suited him to manufacture a semi-legitimate excuse for him to visit the blonde beauty once again.

De Furnellis leant back in his chair and fixed John with his blue eyes.

'Why don't you try sterner tactics with these fellows down in Axmouth? Do it on my behalf - take Ralph Morin and a troop of soldiers from the garrison with you. Demand to see what's in those barns, and if anyone tries to stop you arrest them and drag' em back here in chains!'

The coroner was mildly surprised at the sheriff's sudden change of attitude, so different from his usual inertia at doing anything active. Perhaps the murder of one of his Keepers of the Peace had hardened his attitude.

'Do you think that would do any good?' he asked doubtfully.

Henry shrugged. 'What's to lose, apart from another few hours in the saddle? Put the fear of God into the sods, make them show you all they have hidden away and demand to see the tallies of what they are supposed to have. Take your Thomas with you; he can check any documents they may produce.'

He took another swig of his wine and wiped his moustache with his fingers. 'See if that creepy little fellow Capie is as corrupt as most of the Customs clerks. After all, I pay his salary from the county funds; I've got every right to check up on him. Take Sergeant Gabriel and as many men as you need.'

They discussed more details of this pre-emptive raid, and after emptying the wine jug de Wolfe went on his way, now more content that he at least had some sort of plan of campaign about the Axmouth problem.

He was less sure about a plan of campaign in relation to his tangled personal affairs, but philosophically decided to allow fate to take its course.

That evening John was at his customary place in the Bush with Gwyn sitting across the table, each enjoying a restful quart of Nesta's best ale. As usual, Thomas was off at his literary tasks in the scriptorium of the cathedral. Nesta had been seeing to some kitchen crisis but was now sitting alongside John to hear his story about the murdered Keeper of the Peace and the outlaws' ambush on the Honiton road. Once again, he had decided to keep the news about Matilda to himself until he had a better idea of her intentions.

'A Welshman, you say?' she asked, when he related the tale of the stonemason's wound. 'Then he's almost a neighbour to my family, if he's from Cas-Gwent!' This was the Welsh name for Chepstow, a Saxon title meaning a market town, though the Norman owners now called it Striguil.

'He's now under the tender care of Brother Saulf in St John's,' said de Wolfe. This was a small priory just inside the East Gate, which had a few sick beds that were all Exeter could offer in the way of a hospital. 'He says that the spear wound is not deep arid hasn't damaged anything vital, as long as the flesh doesn't turn rotten.'

Nesta, ever sympathetic to people's misfortunes, especially if they were Welsh, began worrying about the man even though she had never met him nor even heard of him until ten minutes earlier.

'So far from home and no doubt concerned about his livelihood, if that's his working arm,' she fretted. 'How long will he be in St John's?'

'If he does well, no more than a few days, according to the monk,' said Gwyn. 'I'll call in tomorrow and see him. He may like to hear a word of his own language, though he speaks English well enough, after working so much in Gloucester.'

The landlady nodded her auburn head. 'I'll slip up there, too. He may not understand your uncouth Cornish accent!' she teased. 'I'll take him something decent to eat, too.'

The conversation drifted to other matters, and John related how he had been to see the sheriff earlier that day, to tell him of the death of Luke de Casewold, who was one of de Furnellis's law officers, though even Henry seemed vague about what the functions of these peacekeepers were supposed to be.

'I told him that he must report this killing as soon as he can to Winchester or London. The Chief Justiciar appointed these men, so he must be told that one has been slain, even if only to replace him.'

'And seek out those who did it,' grunted Gwyn. 'Otherwise the swine will think they can get away with anything.'

'What's this all about, anyway?' demanded Nesta. 'Is it connected with these misdoings in Axmouth?'

John nodded, waving his pot at Edwin for a refill.

'I'm sure it is. There's organised corruption going on from that port, but so far it's been impossible to get any proof. Everyone clams up like a limpet when you try to talk to them. I sometimes think the whole village is part of a big conspiracy.'

'Is this bailiff at the root of it, d'you think?'

John shrugged. 'He's a nasty, overbearing bully, but I can't bring him back in chains for that. There's nothing to show he had anything to do with the Keeper's death - neither is there for the portreeve, Elias Palmer, though he's such a poor apology for a man that I can't see him slaying so much as a cat, let alone killing de Casewold.'

'So what do we do next, Crowner? ' asked Gwyn in his slow Cornish voice.

John sighed and held up his palms. 'The sheriff is all for sending us down there with Ralph Morin, Gabriel and a bunch of their men-at-arms. We are to shake the place up and see what falls out, but I suspect that those bastards are too clever to leave any loose ends.'

'And if that doesn't work?' asked Nesta.

'Then all I can think of is acting like a mole-catcher.

If you can't see anything on the surface, you set a trap!'

CHAPTER EIGHT

In which Crowner John goes to a nunnery

Soon after dawn next day, John borrowed a rounsey from the livery stables opposite, not wanting to saddle up his big destrier Odin for such a brief journey. On the lighter horse, he covered the mile or two to Polsloe in a short time and soon arrived at the small gatehouse in the long wall that enclosed the compound. The porter emerged from his hut at the side and grudgingly agreed to inform the prioress of his desire to speak to her. John had been here several times before and accepted that casual male callers were not easily admitted to this nest of women. He waited just inside the gate, allowing his horse to crop the grass that extended around the wide compound, the priory itself being little more than a few stone buildings set in the centre.