The Poisoned Chalice (36 page)

At this a murmuring went around the hall. Everyone was well aware from local gossip that Fitzosbern had confessed to being Adele de Courcy's lover and the instigator of her miscarriage. They knew equally well that he had denied ravishing Christina Rifford and that Garth, the silversmith's man, had confessed to that particular crime, but John felt it no part of his inquest to go into those matters.

‘The identity of the cadaver as being Godfrey Fitzosbern is well known and no presentment of Englishry is necessary. The question of a murdrum fine will have to be left to the King's Justices, unless a culprit is discovered in the meantime.'

The coroner stood up and hovered at the edge of the dais, the sheriff looking up at him, half amused. ‘The jury will now examine the body, as the law demands.' John stepped down to the floor of beaten earth and advanced towards the crude bier, where Gwyn preceded him to whip off the sheet and expose the body down as far as the belly, leaving the lower part of the cloth in place for decency's sake.

Thomas humped his stool nearer to the edge of the dais and hunched over his parchment, ready to write down the proceedings.

Hesitantly, the score of junior priests, servants and choristers formed a circle around the bier, as John began to point out the injuries. Fitzosbern lay with his head on a block of wood, face puffy, eyes almost closed by swollen bruises. Purple-red discolouration covered all the left side of his face, with some straight lines of contusion running down the cheek.

John prodded each injury with a long forefinger, in the manner of a pedagogue giving an anatomy lecture. ‘He has been sorely beaten on the face with some long object, maybe a stave or fence-post. See these splits in the skin.' He poked a fingernail into a long gaping wound running diagonally up the left side of Fitzosbern's forehead into the thick dark hair. The pallid vicars gaped at the sight and one chorister left the back row to go outside to vomit. ‘On the left side of the neck, there are several of these long straight bruises, but also some small round marks, perhaps from knuckle blows.'

John then turned his attention to the chest, where mottled areas of blue and red bruises showed some lines across the skin. ‘As well as these marks from a rod-like weapon, there are these crescents and large marks over the ribs. I suggest to you that they are from heavy kicks.'

‘What really killed him, Crowner?' ventured a more robust juror, a servant from a prebendary's house.

For answer, John pressed a strong hand downwards over the breastbone, showing how the front of the chest caved in. This was accompanied by a gurgling from the dead man's throat and a crackling of bone upon bone as the broken rib-ends ground together. Another juror slipped outside to be sick, as John explained that stamping and kicking had crushed the front of the chest.

As the crowd stood in silent awe, he dictated a short account to Thomas, then climbed back on to the platform, as Gwyn drew the sheet discreetly up over Godfrey's face.

‘So there is no doubt how he died,' continued the coroner. ‘The question is, who caused him to die? Has anyone any information to give me?' He scowled around the hall, almost as if to challenge anyone to offer information.

There was a silence, broken only by feet shuffling on the rough floor.

‘Did anyone see anything untoward in the cathedral precincts last night?' he demanded. Strictly speaking, the whole area around the cathedral, apart from the paths, was outside the jurisdiction of the town, coming under ecclesiastical law – but John de Alecon had told him that the bishop had waived any right to challenge the coroner's warrant where deaths were concerned. There was no answer to his question, neither from Picot nor from the two men he had named.

Never one to mince words, John stared down at Reginald de Courcy and Hugh Ferrars, who stood side by side in the front row. ‘I have had a report that you two gentlemen were abroad in that area last night. Is that true?'

Hugh Ferrars jumped as if stuck in the backside with a pike. ‘What? Do you know what you are saying, Crowner?'

De Wolfe gazed at him steadily. ‘I know what I am saying, sir.'

Hugh looked as if he was about to have a stroke. ‘Tell me what bastard spun you that tale!' he yelled.

His father was also stung into instant response. ‘De Wolfe, are you mad? What nonsense is this?' His face went puce, and both father and son marched up to the foot of the dais and confronted the coroner and the sheriff.

Amid the sudden hubbub in the hall, de Courcy added his voice in loud yells of protest and angry denial, as he joined the others below the edge of the platform.

Richard de Revelle, to whom this was equally a surprise, jumped to his feet and rounded on the coroner. ‘You can't accuse people in public, man!' he hissed. ‘Who gave you this scurrilous slander?'

John suffered the clamour for a moment, then threw up his hands and yelled, in a voice that could have been heard in St Sidwell's, ‘Be silent, all of you!'

His outburst was so dramatic that there was momentary silence, into which he snapped out an explanation. ‘I accused no one. But information came my way which I cannot ignore. I asked a simple question, which requires a simple answer. Were you, Reginald de Courcy, and you, Hugh Ferrars, walking in the cathedral Close late last evening?'

Red in the face, the younger Ferrars glared up at him and shouted above the returning babble of voices, ‘No, I bloody well was not, Sir Crowner! You are too fond of baseless accusations. By Christ and Mary, Mother of God, and St Peter – and any number of damned saints you like – I was drinking in half the inns in Exeter last night – and none of those lie in the cathedral Close!'

There was a ripple of ribald laughter at this sally, but John was not amused. ‘And, no doubt, you conveniently walked half the town doing it, eh?'

‘With a dozen witnesses who caroused with me to prove it,' retorted Hugh angrily.

His father pointed a quivering forefinger at the coroner. ‘You'll regret this, de Wolfe. Your mouth will be the ruin of you.'

John ignored the threat and turned his gaze on de Courcy, who was similarly flushed with anger. ‘Do you say the same, Sir Reginald? I ask only for a yea or nay, there's no accusation involved, at this stage.'

De Courcy was almost livid with fury. ‘To settle this once and for all, hear this, Crowner.' He pulled out his dagger from the sheath on his belt and waved it aloft. Gwyn started forward, thinking he was about to plunge it into the coroner, but instead he grasped it by the blade and held it high above him. ‘By this Sign of the Cross, I swear once – and once only – that I spent the whole evening by my own fireside until I took to my bed.' He lowered the knife and slid it back into its sheath, then turned on his heel and walked out, his brown surcoat pressed close to his body by the cold wind as he left by the open archway.

As if to emphasise their contempt, the two Ferrars followed him out without a glance at the coroner, stalking away in high dudgeon.

With a poisonous look at his brother-in-law, the sheriff stepped down from the platform and hurried after them.

The rest of the inquest was an anti-climax after the drama. Inevitably the jury returned a verdict of murder by persons unknown and everyone drifted off, including Godfrey Fitzosbern, who was trundled on a handcart across to St John's Hospital, to await burial in the cathedral Close, where he had met his death.

Next morning, the coroner sat, somewhat despondently, in his Spartan chamber within Rougemont Castle. He felt that nothing had been achieved by yesterday's inquest, apart from further antagonism between himself, the Ferrars, de Courcy and the sheriff. ‘I suppose we'll have that bunch back this morning, spitting venom at me for daring to ask where they were the night before last,' he grumbled to Gwyn. They were waiting for Thomas to report on his search around the town for bloodstains and more servants' gossip, which might give them a lead to Fitzosbern's killer.

Reluctantly John pulled out the latest Latin lesson given him by his cathedral tutor and half-heartedly began to study it on the table. Gwyn sat quietly on the window-ledge, staring absently at the floor, his brow wrinkled in thought. His unusual silence soon unnerved his master. ‘Are you sick, man? You're not even drinking ale!'

‘I was thinking about Reginald de Courcy.'

John was immediately attentive. When Gwyn had some deep thoughts, they were always worth considering. ‘What about him?'

‘He was one of those named by Eric Picot, but he couldn't have struck those blows.'

The coroner threw down his Latin roll and leaned back on his stool. ‘Come, Gwyn, what's on that great mind of yours?'

‘All the injuries on Fitzosbern were on the left side, both face, neck and chest. If struck by someone in front of him, which he must have been, then de Courcy is exonerated.'

The coroner stared hard at his henchman. Gwyn never said anything without a good reason. ‘Why do you claim that, man?'

‘When he took that oath in the court yesterday, did you notice that he held up his dagger with the left hand? I watched him thereafter and he is undoubtedly left-handed. Even his dagger sheath is on his right hip, instead of on the usual left. And no left-handed man could have caused those injuries from the front.'

John mused over this for a moment and could find no fault in Gwyn's argument. ‘Right, I give you that he never struck the blows. But he could have gripped Fitzosbern for another to strike him, or otherwise been in conspiracy with Ferrars to kill the man.'

Gwyn shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘True, but at least it's a bit of knowledge we didn't have before.'

The conversation was ended by the uneven tip-tap of a lame leg climbing the stairs, then Thomas pushed his way through the hessian hanging over the doorway. His pinched face had a gleam of suppressed excitement, the little dark eyes glittering with pride.

‘Here comes the gnome of Winchester!' teased Gwyn rudely. ‘What news from the gutters?'

The clerk was too pleased with himself to rise to the bait. ‘Blood, Crowner. I've found blood!' he declared proudly.

With a peremptory jerk of his finger, John got the little ex-priest to sit on the stool before him and tell his story. ‘What blood and where?' he demanded.

Agog with self-importance, Thomas de Peyne described his adventures of the previous afternoon and early that morning.

‘I went to de Courcy's dwelling in Currestreet. There was a chestnut-seller outside and I waited there as an excuse, eating from a halfpenny sack for some time, watching the house door.' He produced a big hessian bag of cold roasted nuts, which Gwyn immediately began to peel and chew. ‘Eventually, a serving-maid opened the door to brush out old rushes and I spun her a tale that I had a message for her master from the sheriff. I knew he was not in, but persuaded the girl to allow me inside to wait for him, chancing that he wouldn't return and catch me there.'

John gave one of his rare grins at the deviousness of the crooked clerk. ‘And you found nothing?'

Thomas looked piqued at the anticipation of his tale. ‘No, I had no chance to get beyond the porch and outer hall, but slipped through into the yard to tell the maid and the cook that I could wait no longer. But I had time to examine all the clothing that hung on hooks and the shoes and boots that lay on the floor. There was nothing to be seen. Of course, what may have been near the hearth or in the solar, I had no opportunity to view.'

Gwyn and the coroner exchanged glances and the Cornishman spat out some chestnut shell before speaking. ‘As we thought, he could not have struck the blows.'

Thomas looked puzzled at this obscure comment, but plunged on with the best part of his story. ‘This morning, I went to the younger Ferrars's lodgings in Goldsmith Street. He has only one room and the vestibule there, where he and his squire live when he is in the city. It was easier, for he has no house servants, the squire carrying out any menial tasks. They seem to eat and drink – mainly drink – entirely in the town, not at home.'

‘Get to the bloody point, man,' growled Gwyn.

Thomas made a rude gesture at him and poked out his tongue. ‘There are other men lodging there, some using the upper room and others the back yard, so there was considerable coming and going. I followed one man through the front door, which wagged back and forth as often as a Cornishman's mouth.' He dodged a chestnut thrown by Gwyn. ‘I stood inside the vestibule, where there was a rude pallet for the squire's bed and much clothing, boots and armour. There was so much that it must have belonged to both Ferrars and his henchman.' He drew breath to prepare for the climax of his story. ‘I took the chance that no one was at home, as they seem to spend half their time jousting and the other half in the taverns. I searched among the clothing. There, on the side of a surcoat I have seen Ferrars wearing, were many spots of fresh blood.' He ended on this triumphant note and looked expectantly at his master.

‘Where was this garment?' asked John, sceptically.

‘Hanging on a peg on the left-hand side, just within the street door. There were a few drops of blood on the floor beneath, which must have dripped off the hem.'

Gwyn pulled hard at his moustache. ‘You said that Hugh Ferrars is often away at sword practice and horse-jousting. The blood could have come from that.'

‘He would never wear a fine linen surcoat to go fighting,' objected Thomas, annoyed that his great discovery was not being received with due acclamation. ‘He would have worn a hauberk or at least a leather cuirass.'

‘What colour was this coat?'

‘A pale dun – a greyish-brown.'

‘Not the best colour for showing up blood spots,' objected Gwyn, but Thomas ignored him.

‘Do you recall what Hugh Ferrars was wearing in the shire hall yesterday?' asked John, looking from Thomas to Gwyn. Neither could remember, and the coroner himself could not call it to mind.