The Manor of Death (4 page)

Gwyn smirked. He had a great fondness for de Wolfe's mistress but was constantly amused by their bickering.

De Wolfe grunted a farewell to the ale-wife and ducked his head under the low lintel to lead them into the road outside. Both he and Gwyn were six feet tall, though he was as lean and spare as his officer was massively built. A slight stoop and his habit of always dressing in black or grey made him look like some predatory crow. His great hooked nose, black eyebrows and pugnacious chin combined to make most men step hurriedly aside when he bore down upon them.

When their horses were brought around, John climbed gingerly into his saddle, his old warhorse Odin waiting patiently while he arranged his posterior in the position of least discomfort.

'We're well over halfway, I reckon,' advised Gwyn as they set off over the little bridge. 'I came up here many years ago to the harbour in Axmouth, when my father came to buy a new boat.'

Gwyn, who for almost twenty years had been de Wolfe's squire, bodyguard and now coroner's officer, had previously been a fisherman in his native village of Polruan, at the mouth of the Fowey river in Cornwall. He had followed his master to campaigns in Ireland, France and to the Third Crusade in Palestine, but now that they were both over forty, their fighting days seemed over.

It took them almost another two hours to pass through the village of Colyford, on the western side of the wide valley of the Axe. Across the vale, a barrier of green hills ran north and south, dividing Devon from Dorset and ending in an abrupt headland where the estuary opened into the sea. The tide was in and a great expanse of water lay below them, like a fjord reaching almost two miles inland, being up to half a mile wide. They trotted their horses down to the marshy ground, where the track became a crude causeway leading to a small bridge, where at this stage of the tide the water was lapping almost to the edges of the boards. The bank rose on the other side as they reached the lower slope of the ridge where there was a crossroads. When they stopped, the knowledgeable Thomas pointed up the road to their left, where the valley vanished northwards. 'That's a branch of the Fosse Way, built by the Romans,' he announced with the air of a pedagogue. 'Goes all the way to Lincoln!'

The coroner's officer was not impressed by his learning. 'Then we'll take the opposite direction, which with a bit of luck goes all the way to another alehouse!'

They turned down towards the sea and for a mile or so followed the well-beaten track to the large village of Axmouth, the high ridge close above them on their left. It was virtually a small town, straggled along the edge of the estuary. It existed because the river provided one of the safest harbours along that coast, the tide swelling the river twice a day to allow vessels to beach themselves safely along both banks. It was one of the busiest ports in the west of England, as well as having an active fishing fleet, as did the smaller village of Seaton on the opposite bank.

'A bigger place than I remember,' observed Gwyn as they walked their steeds down the last furlong. Though not actually fortified, it had a substantial wall around the centre of the village, above which could be seen the tower of a stone church. There were two solid gates, which, like the wall, were higher than a man. One faced them as they approached, the more distant one leading out on to the quayside on the seaward side. Cottages, shacks and storage huts straggled along the river bank, showing that the place had expanded beyond the confines of the walls. A small side valley cut into the hill on their left, revealing more dwellings and barns.

'Looks as if we're expected, master,' observed Thomas, pointing at a small group who were waiting outside the landward gate, staring at the approaching horsemen.

'That clerk must have told them we were on our way,' said Gwyn. The man had left Exeter even earlier that morning, and his rounsey would have been faster than the plodding Odin or Thomas's pony.

As they came up to the gate, they saw the clerk, Hugh Bogge, standing alongside another one of the group, a man better dressed than the others. As they approached, he left his fellows and came towards them, his hand held up in greeting. John sat on his horse and looked down at the man, who looked about his own age. He was of average height, but an ale-belly was beginning to push out a good-quality yellow tunic and a sure oat of brown wool. His round, plump face carried a prim, pursey mouth, and strands of straw-coloured hair poked out from under his floppy cap of green velvet.

'Sir John de Wolfe, I presume?' he asked in a rather harsh voice. 'I am Sir Luke de Casewold, the Keeper of the Peace for the Hundreds of Axminster, Colyton and Axmouth.'

He said this in such a self-important manner that the coroner immediately began to dislike Luke de Casewold. However, he held his tongue and cautiously eased himself out of his saddle, feeling relief at being able to stand up. After John introduced himself, the Keeper turned and pointed at the silent group standing a little way off, looking uneasy and sheepish.

'These are people concerned, coroner. I know what the law demands and have made sure that the First Finder and anyone who might have any knowledge of this business have come before you.'

Again, he announced this in such a way as to give the impression that he was doing the coroner a great favour.

'And what exactly is this business?' grated de Wolfe. 'Your servant seemed to have little idea of it, apart from the fact that there is a corpse.'

Sir Luke rubbed his hands together almost gleefully, as if this was a special treat he had arranged for the king's coroner. 'Indeed there is, my friend! I will conduct you to it without delay.'

He made no effort to enquire whether de Wolfe and his assistants needed food, drink and rest after their long ride from the city, but at that moment there was a diversion. Through the open gate under its stone arch, two men came striding purposefully towards them. The first was a powerfully built man with coarse features and a rim of black beard around his fleshy face. He had a mouth like a rat-trap and cold deep-set eyes under brows as dark as the coroner's own. He marched straight up to de Wolfe, completely ignoring the Keeper.

'I am Edward Northcote, bailiff to the Prior of Loders, who holds this manor,' he snapped. 'If you are the coroner, then you have had a wasted journey. You were sent for without my knowledge or consent.'

Within minutes, John now had another person to dislike on sight. He was not disposed to be ordered about by some prior's servant.

'If there is a dead body lying here, then I will be the judge of that,' he growled. 'Unless it died of a sickness, with witnesses to testify to that, then it comes under my jurisdiction, as granted to me by the king and his Council!' He added the last part to give weight to his royal appointment.

The other man who had arrived with the bailiff now spoke up, in a more conciliatory tone. 'We realise that, Crowner, but wished to have saved you a fruitless journey from Exeter. No doubt this is just some poor seafarer washed up from God knows where.'

'Nonsense! The fellow was done to death violently, not drowned,' brayed Luke de Casewold, his podgy features red with anger at being contradicted by Elias Palmer, the portreeve, a rake-thin man with sparse greying hair and a long narrow face. He wore a long tunic down to his calves. It was of a nondescript buff colour and the front was spattered with ink stains. Most manors had a reeve to organise the farming activities, but in Axmouth it was different, as agriculture played a much smaller part in the village economy. Though it was not a chartered borough, it was important enough by virtue of its harbour to have some officials, and Palmer had been appointed as portreeve by the Priory of Loders, which lay some twenty miles away in Dorset, to supervise all trading in the town. The manor itself was in the charge of the prior's bailiff, the aggressive Edward Northcote, so between them they were the effective rulers of Axmouth.

The coroner held up his hand to quell the argument developing between them and the Keeper of the Peace. 'I'm here now, so let's settle matters by letting me see the corpse,' he commanded. 'But tell me first the circumstances of its discovery.'

De Casewold turned and beckoned imperiously to someone in the group of onlookers. 'It's best coming from the First Finder, as is proper!' he brayed, again making John want to kick the man's rump for trying to tell a coroner his business. He was surprised when an elderly man in a long black robe, his grey hair shaved into a clerical tonsure, stepped forward. Completely toothless, his mouth had caved in, his sharp hooked nose pointing down at his chin.

'Here's one of your lot!' muttered Gwyn into Thomas's ear as the old priest came up to them. The clerk scowled at him for his habitual irreverence, then turned and smiled at the priest and murmured a greeting in Latin.

'This is Henry of Cumba, the parish priest of St Michael's there,' said Luke, waving a hand towards the church tower. 'It was he who found the body.'

Father Henry's lined face looked apprehensive as he confronted the forbidding figure of the coroner, and he spoke up in a quavering voice. 'I had an old hound, of which I was very fond, sir,' he began.

At this apparent irrelevance, John wondered if the aged priest's mind was wandering, but the old man soon made it clear.

'The poor beast died yesterday, mainly of old age, as I had had him more than a dozen years. Rather than cast his body on to the village midden, I thought I owed it to him to bury him decently, so took a spade and wrapped him in a sack.'

Gwyn, an ardent dog-lover, nodded his appreciation of the old man's humanity, as Henry carried on with his tale.

'I went outside the walls - through this very gate, in fact - and sought a place to dig a hole, well beyond those cottages.' He pointed back up the sloping track down which the coroner had approached the village. 'Behind a hazel bush, I began to dig, as I saw a patch of soft earth which would be easier to shift, my old backbone not being as strong as it used to be.'

'Get to the point, man!' urged the Keeper irritably.
 

'Well, not more than a spade's depth down, I unearthed a foot, and a couple more strokes showed me a whole leg. I stopped digging and uttered a prayer or two to shrive the poor fellow, then went back to the village to tell someone.'

'What happened to the dog?' asked Gwyn.

'Oh, I buried him first, twenty paces away,' the priest reassured him.

The bailiff and portreeve were becoming impatient with this long-winded tale from their rather vague old vicar. 'Why did you not come straight to me?' demanded Edward Northcote belligerently. 'We could have settled the matter quickly and you could have given the man a decent burial in your churchyard, without all this unnecessary fuss with the coroner.'

Henry of Cumba smiled weakly at the bailiff. 'I intended to seek you out - but I met the Keeper here as I entered the gate and told him instead.'

'Just as well I happened to be here on my weekly perambulation from Axminster,' said Luke de Casewold breezily. 'From what he told me, it was a clear case for the coroner, not one to be brushed aside for the sake of convenience.'

'Nonsense! You're just an interfering busybody!' shouted Northcote, his hard features twisted in anger.

Incensed by this insult, the Keeper once again went red in the face and rattled his sword in its scabbard. 'Have a care, bailiff! You are just a servant, albeit of a priory - but I am a knight of the realm and deserve respect from such as you! One of the reasons that our blessed King Richard set up Keepers last year was because of the laxity and corruption of sergeants and bailiffs.'

Again, John de Wolfe stepped in to quell the developing fight - if he had had a bucket of water, he would have thrown it over them, as if they were two dogs snarling in the street. 'Enough of this! I wish to see the body, straight away. I trust it has not been moved?'

De Casewold shook himself, like an angry cockerel settling its feathers.

'Of course not, Crowner! I know the law: the cadaver must be left in situ until viewed by the coroner. Though I had the nearest householders to put up hurdles around it to keep off dogs and foxes overnight.'

They set off back up the track, the Keeper of the Peace marching ahead importantly with his clerk trailing behind him. They were followed by the coroner's party, then the locals, headed by the bailiff and portreeve.

As they passed the few small thatched huts that straggled up from the town, heads poked out from each doorway, peering at these strangers from distant Exeter. Everyone knew that the coroner had been called, but no one wished to become involved unless they were forced to, as any contact with the law was likely to prove inconvenient and expensive in terms of attachments and amercements.

As they walked, John turned and beckoned to the portreeve to catch him up. 'Why did you say this was only a sailor whose body happened to be washed up here?' he asked. 'He could hardly get himself washed into a grave behind a hazel bush,' he added sarcastically.

Elias Palmer looked confused and guilty at the same time, as the bailiff hurried to join them. 'I thought ... I only meant .. .' he stuttered, until Northcote interrupted gruffly.

'He meant that someone must have found the corpse washed up along the high-tide mark and decided to hide it away to avoid trouble ... such as that from the coroner!' he said rudely. 'We all know that having a corpse on your manor means an inquest and no doubt amercements for some breach of the rules, which you law officers always manage to find!'