The Awful Secret (35 page)

Leaving the other men-at-arms to patrol the village, he and Gwyn rode back down to the port where Richard de Revelle and Ralph Morin, together with the Templars, had rounded up all the prisoners. They were tied hand and foot, sitting in a dejected circle outside the alehouse. A small crowd of women, old men and children had emerged and were wailing and weeping, both for the few dead men laid out on the riverbank and the soon-to-be dead prisoners, whose fate must surely be hanging.

‘What was in that shed on the beach?’ demanded de Wolfe of the sheriff.

‘Goods of all sorts, none of which could possibly be afforded by this miserable vill,’ answered de Revelle complacently. ‘Undoubtedly looted from passing ships – to be carted away to Bridgwater or Taunton or even Bristol to be sold.’

‘I’d better look at it all later, to record it on my rolls,’ muttered de Wolfe. He saw a chance to let Thomas appear without arousing any suspicion. ‘I told my clerk to follow us from Exeter when he could. He had an attack of the bloody flux, but was recovering when we left, so I hope he finds us soon. I could do with his penmanship.’ He looked up at the sky and, though the sun appeared only fitfully, reckoned it was still about four hours to noon, when he had arranged to meet Thomas. ‘What do we need to do here now?’ he asked the constable.

‘I’ll set fires in those two galleys to stop them being used again, though this village will be without many men for a few years to come, if we hang all this lot.’ He indicated the bedraggled prisoners sitting in the mud, but was interrupted by a shout from one of the soldiers, who stood with outstretched arm, pointing at a sea-going knarr that had just appeared close inshore, having come around the eastern headland.

The tide was now just past its top and there was enough water for the knarr to enter the mouth of the little river before it ran aground. The ship-master and one of the crew splashed ashore and came to the village, looking in astonishment at the scene.

The sheriff was suspicious of this new arrival, but it became obvious that a vessel of this type was no pirate and it was soon established that it was the
Brendan,
out of Bristol, bound for Falmouth. The shipmaster had instructions to call at Lynmouth to pick up ten hogsheads of wine to take onward to Falmouth.

‘Obviously part of a looted cargo,’ snapped the sheriff. ‘Where else would that much wine come from in a place like this?’

The man shrugged, indifferent to the source of the cargo. ‘I do what I’m told,’ he said. ‘I don’t own the vessel, I just sail it.’

‘Well, you’re stuck here until tomorrow’s tide, that’s for sure,’ said Gwyn. ‘Unless you want to leave in the dark tonight.’ Philosophically, the master went back to his vessel to cook, eat and sleep until the morrow, while John decided it would soon be time to try to keep the appointment with his clerk.

Before he went, he became involved in another argument with his brother-in-law over jurisdiction. The sheriff announced that he intended trying the captives at a special Shire Court set up here today and hanging them straight away, but de Wolfe instantly objected.

‘Piracy and murder are pleas of the Crown. They must be arraigned before the king’s justices at the next Eyre of Assize!’

‘Impossible! We are fifty miles from Exeter and it would take almost a week to march these men all the way back. Then they would have to be kept in prison until the judges condescend to come to Devon. God knows when that will be!’

‘The Eyre is due next month, you know that.’

‘They said that last month, but they’ve not been to the city since October. We can’t guard and feed all the rabble in the West Country indefinitely – and the result will be the same. They’ll be hanged.’

They argued back and forth, but de Revelle was adamant. For once, Ralph Morin sided with him, as a matter of practicality, the captives being so far from the only town where the judges would sit. Though the Shire or County Court, run by the sheriff, was normally held in the Moot Hall in Rougemont, there was no legal reason why it could not be held anywhere in the county, as long as the sheriff was present.

Reluctantly, de Wolfe had to agree, mainly because of the geographical problems, but on condition that the details of the accused and their property were recorded by him for forfeiture. This was another reason for having Thomas present, though he could hardly admit to knowing that his clerk was already in the neighbourhood.

The coroner spent more than an hour inspecting the contents of the shed on the beach. It was a veritable treasure house of goods, even though much must have been carted away already for illicit sale in the big towns of Somerset. Bales of silk, rolls of worsted, cheaper russet cloth and hessian were piled on casks of wine. There were small barrels of raisins and other dried fruit from the South of France and even a pile of green cheeses from Mendip. He was not sure if the coroner’s duties ran to making a complete inventory of the looted cargoes, but hoped that they would have time for Thomas to make a list, not least to prevent it being spirited away by the villagers or even the manorial lord. If it could not be recorded, some soldiers must be left behind to guard it until trustworthy bailiffs could be sent from Barnstaple to have it carted out to safety. He doubted that the rightful owners would ever see any returned, but at least it could be sold for the king’s treasury – if the hands of people like the sheriff could be kept off it.

He walked back to the alehouse, guessing that by now it could not be far off noon. Outside were twelve fishermen-turned-buccaneers squatting dejectedly in their bonds, with Morin’s soldiers now searching for more looted goods in the houses and fish-sheds.

De Wolfe walked Odin away unobtrusively, leaving Gwyn to keep an eye on the Templars. He wondered if they still fancied stalking him on suspicion of concealing de Blanchefort somewhere, though with both of Cosimo’s strong-arm men virtually out of action, he felt that the Italian was no longer a threat.

Lynton was still deserted, apart from the three soldiers, who were burying the body of the slain fugitive at the edge of the village. Short of a house-to-house search, which might be necessary later, there was no way of discovering where the men who had escaped from the beach had hidden. De Wolfe thought that they might have taken to the woods or moors, to keep well out of sight until the sheriff’s men had left the district. There was no manor-house anywhere near and he did not know who the local lord was – or whether he knew or cared if his subjects were part-time pirates.

He stopped Odin in the centre of the village to look around and decide what to do next. The church was on his left, a small timber Saxon building. It had no tower and looked little different from a barn, apart from the plain wooden cross nailed to the gable at one end. He sat for a moment in the silent hamlet, looking around him. Then a movement caught his eye further up the track, at the edge of the village. A pony moved out from behind a thicket and he saw that sitting on it side-saddle was Thomas de Peyne, small and black in the threadbare mantle that still gave him the air of a priest.

Cautiously, the clerk trotted down to his master, looking right and left all the time in his usually furtive manner. ‘I said meet at the church!’ snapped the coroner. ‘And where’s the Templar?’

Thomas glanced apprehensively at the nearby building. ‘There are men in there – I looked just now and they all shouted at me to get out.’

Light dawned on de Wolfe. Now he knew what had happened to the escaped Lynmouth men. ‘Are they claiming sanctuary?’ he demanded.

Thomas gulped. ‘I didn’t wait to ask them, but certainly they were rough men in rough clothing. I doubt they were there for their devotions.’

The coroner stared up the road again. ‘What have you done with de Blanchefort?’

‘I hid him in a small wood, just off the road outside the village. After finding those men, I thought it better to leave him there until I had seen you.’

John nodded his agreement. ‘This may be to our advantage, but he must keep out of sight, at least until tonight. Has he some food with him?’

‘Not much, but enough to survive a day.’

‘As an old Templar, he should be used to roughing it. Now, ride up and tell him that he must stay there until dusk, when we will fetch him. Then come back. There is work for you down below.’

As the clerk hurried away, de Wolfe dismounted and tied Odin to the rough gate in the thorn hedge around the churchyard. He walked through the circle of yew trees and pushed open the church door. Immediately there was a scuffle at the far end and five men crowded together to put a hand on the altar, a plain table with a tin cross and two candlesticks. The rest of the building was empty, the narrow window openings throwing a dim light on to the bare floor of beaten earth. They watched with apprehension as the menacing figure stalked up the nave towards them, a tall, dark, hunched figure in an armoured jerkin and metal helmet, with a huge sword swinging from his baldric.

‘We claim sanctuary!’ shouted one tremulously, and the cry was taken up by the others, as they shrank back from the approaching apparition.

‘Sanctuary! Sanctuary!’

The coroner stopped a few yards away to study them. Three were fairly young, another middle-aged and the last was a short, misshapen figure, with a large head and short arms and legs. De Wolfe remembered the captive from Lundy mentioning the name Eddida Curt-arm, which would fit this one very well.

‘I am Sir John de Wolfe, the king’s crowner,’ he boomed, in a voice that instantly silenced their cries. ‘I respect sanctuary and, indeed, if you persist in claiming it, you will need me to save your necks, as all your accomplices look as if they will hang today.’

He looked at the group, all dressed much the same in tattered, faded fisherman’s tunics and short breeches. All except the dwarf had tangled hair and bushy beards and moustaches.

He was round-faced, with a high forehead, his little eyes glinting with a cunning that de Wolfe marked down as dangerous. ‘What do we do now, Crowner? Surely we have forty days’ grace?’ asked Eddida.

The coroner stood, arms folded, glaring at the men. ‘First, you are murderous scum, and if you had not gained the safety of this consecrated place, you would be hanged like the rest. But now you have several choices. You can give yourselves up to the sheriff and stand trial today down in Lynmouth. Or you can stay here for forty days, when you will be fed by your village folk, who must guard against your escape on pain of heavy amercements. At the end of the forty days, if you have not confessed your guilt and agreed to abjure the realm of England, you will be shut up in here without food or water and allowed to die. If you try to escape from here, you are deemed outlaw and any man can cut off your head without penalty. Finally, at any time from this moment forth, you can confess to me and abjure the realm.’

After this long speech, he stepped back a pace and waited as they murmured amongst themselves. As they did so, Thomas came in through the door and rather nervously came to the coroner, jerkily bending his knee to the altar and making numerous signs of the Cross. ‘Bernardus will stay where he is until tonight,’ he murmured, looking apprehensively at the gang of rough-looking men clustered around the altar. Then their spokesman, Eddida, broke away and came to the single step that separated the rudimentary chancel from the body of the church. ‘We will all confess and abjure, Crowner.’

‘Then I will return later today. You are safe both here and in the churchyard – there’s no need for you to clutch at that altar. There will be soldiers at the gate to prevent your escape.’ He turned and walked towards the door, calling over his shoulder, ‘You should get outside and cut some wood from the yews. You’ll each need a rough cross to carry, and I’ll see if I can find sackcloth robes for you.’ With that he shooed Thomas out of the church and slammed the door behind him.

Richard de Revelle was far from pleased when de Wolfe informed him that some of the pirates had sought sanctuary in Lynton church. He was in the process of setting up his Shire Court in the alehouse when the coroner rode back to the lower village. The sight of Thomas behind him seemed to arouse suspicious interest in the three Templars, and John noticed them in deep conversation with Abbot Cosimo. Soon afterwards, Godfrey Capra rode away and de Wolfe was sure that he had gone up to Lynton to check on the village and look in the church to confirm the identity of the five sanctuary seekers.

The prisoners had been marched to another barn-like shed just behind the tavern and locked in, with guards at the door. Outside, the womenfolk were gathered, crying and keening, or shouting through the flimsy walls to their doomed men inside.

The sheriff had taken over the single large room of the alehouse, bringing in a trestle table and a few rough benches. A quantity of fresh fish, from this morning’s catch, had been commandeered and some of Gabriel’s men were cooking it over a fire at the back. Bread had been taken from the nearest houses, over the protests of the owners, and soon a scratch meal was being put before the leaders in the tavern, while the soldiers ate around their fire.

The prospect of a mass execution had no effect on anyone’s appetite, but as they ate Richard de Revelle went back to complaining about the men in the church. ‘Why should they escape a hanging, just because they were craven enough to leave their friends to fight, and because they could run faster than our men?’

De Wolfe pulled the meat off a grilled herring with his knife and waited for it to cool. ‘Don’t ask me. I didn’t make the law.’

Abbot Cosimo, his fish on a slice of bread in his hand, looked up with a frown. ‘Sanctuary is one of the sacred traditions of Christianity. In fact, it existed long before Our Saviour – the Hebrews had six Levitical cities of refuge and the Greeks and Romans also recognised the concept.’

The sheriff voiced his disapproval of anyone being able to escape the noose and cost the community money for his keep while doing so. ‘I’ve a mind to go into that church and haul the bastards out!’ he muttered, but the alert Cosimo heard him and was shocked.