The Noble Outlaw (10 page)

De Wolfe had been trying to learn to read and write, taught both by a vicar from the cathedral and by Thomas, but his lack of patience made him a poor student and he had hardly progressed beyond being able to read a few simple sentences and sign his name. Now he looked with wonder, rather than envy, at his clerk's dextrous fingers forming the regular lines of Latin script on the creamy parchment before him.

After a few minutes, boredom began to overtake him.

He missed Gwyn's boisterous company, as the officer was still down in Smythen Street organising the inquest which John would hold just before noon. At this time of morning, the three of them would usually have a second breakfast, but with Gwyn away, there was no bread and cheese and the large jug of cider on the floor was empty.

De Wolfe drummed his fingers on the table and shivered as a cold blast of air whistled through the slit-shaped windows. The snow had held off, but it was frosty and the wind was rising from the east.

Thomas looked up, his pointed nose bright red with cold, the beginnings of a dewdrop forming at its tip.

He sensed that his impatient master wanted some diversion.

'How will you pursue this killing, sir?' he asked.

'Start by discovering more about this saddler,' replied John. 'Search his dwelling for a start, then question those who knew him in life, I suppose.'

'He seems to have been a stalwart guild member,' offered Thomas. 'I heard Walter Pole mention that this Matthew had once been the treasurer of the Cordwainers, which includes all kinds of leatherworkers.' The coroner had learned over the sixteen months since he had taken office that his clerk was both intelligent and perceptive, so that anything he suggested was usually worth considering.

'The guilds! We must follow that aspect. I'll speak to Hugh de Relaga about it, he has his finger in every scheme the merchants devise in Exeter.' De Relaga was the garishly dressed portreeve, one of the two leaders of the city council, as well as being John's business associate in their wool-exporting business. When de Wolfe returned home from Palestine, he had invested his booty wisely and had become a sleeping partner in this enterprise with Hugh. They bought fleeces from all over the Southwest and shipped them across to Normandy, Flanders and even as far as Cologne. Recently, they had invested in three ships so that henceforth, instead of the partners paying freight, their own crews would sail the Channel when the new season began in the Spring and come back with finished cloth as well as wine and fruit, to make a steady profit on the transaction.

'The present warden of that guild might be worth questioning, Crowner,' suggested Thomas. 'I took the liberty this morning of finding out who it was. He's Archibald Wasteper, a master cordwainer. He sells his footwear from a shop in North Gate Street.' John nodded. 'I know of the place, my wife has bought shoes there - and damned expensive they were,' he added, with feeling.

The clerk sensed that the coroner still wanted some distraction until Gwyn returned, so he kept the dialogue going.

'Sir, do you think that there is anything in this claim of Sir Richard, that this outlaw has some part in the death?'

John scratched his head; a flea was irritating him. 'I don't rule out anything, but it's a pretty unlikely story.' Thomas nodded his agreement. 'And there is the problem of a Dartmoor outlaw getting into the city.'
 

Here de Wolfe declined to agree with his clerk. 'Not as difficult as you might think, Thomas. With the many hundreds of folk in and out of the gates each day, it's impossible to check everyone, even if those idle porters on the gates made an effort to do so - which they don't.' He gave a lop-sided grin. 'Outlaws not uncommonly squirm their way back into society. I've heard of several who rose to become respected pillars of society again, under new names and in a different city.' The sounds of heavy feet on the stairway heralded Gwyn's return and a moment later his large figure pushed its way through the doorway curtain. He was clutching a gallon jar of cider and three hot mutton pasties, bought from a stall outside the castle gate.

As they ate and drank, Gwyn reported that the inquest was set up and a jury had been impounded from all the neighbours in Smythen Street, as well as the occupants of the school.

'Properly put out, was that magister fellow,' he chortled. 'Said it would disturb his lecture on Homer, whatever the hell that is!'

Thomas pursed his lips in academic disapproval. 'You ignorant Cornish savage. Homer was probably the most famous writer in history.'

Gwyn leered at the little priest. 'Well, he wasn't too well-known down in Polruan, I can tell you!'
 

John raised a hand imperiously. 'That's enough, you two. After dinner, we'll talk to some people about this Morcok fellow. Surely someone should know what he did to get himself killed.'

The inquest was a low-key event, with few people present apart from the jury whose members had been reluctantly dragged in from the surrounding area. Though in the countryside, all males over twelve from the four nearest villages were supposed to attend an inquest in case anyone had any information about the death, this was impossible in the more populous towns and cities.

Here, it was only practicable to round up a score or so of those from the immediate neighbourhood to act as jurors. Their duty was not only to consider a verdict, but also to act as witnesses, as local people were most likely to have knowledge of what went on in their street.

Gwyn had been around all the nearby houses and workshops to order their attendance, on pain of fines if they failed to turn up, and now a couple of dozen men and older boys had shuffled into the yard of the smithy. They stood in a ragged half-circle outside the open doors of the outbuilding, looking sheepish and uncertain of their role in this legal ritual. The coroner's system was little more than a year old and few people understood it - though anything connected with the law was always to be avoided wherever possible, as fines and even imprisonment were an inevitable result of falling to abide by the tortuous rules.

At the end of the line of men stood Magister James Anglicus and his pompous acolyte Henry Wotri. Behind them lurked a dozen students, ranging from fresh-faced boys of fifteen to some serious young men of twenty, all dressed in black clerical habits similar to that of Thomas de Peyne, who was seated on a box just inside the doors.

He had an empty cask in front of him to support his parchments and ink bottle, which he always carried in a leather pouch slung over his shoulder.

A few curious spectators clustered inside, the gate, mostly old men with nothing else to occupy their time, plus a sprinkling of goodwives and some cheeky urchins.

John spotted old Edwin from the Bush, who obviously could not resist nosing into anything that took place within a few hundred paces of the tavern.

Gwyn bellowed out the official summoning of the inquest, exhorting 'all who have anything to do before the king's coroner for the county of Devon' to 'come forth and give their attendance'. Then he walked to stand behind John, who glowered around at the jurors, looking like a big crow in his wolfskin cloak of mottled grey over a long black tunic. The cold breeze swirled his swept-back hair over his collar as he harshly instructed the men as to their functions.

'This is an inquest held to investigate a breach of the peace of our sovereign lord, King Richard,' he began.

'You must consider who, where, when and by what means the man who lies here came to his death.' He glared around the ring of jurors, as if defying them to contradict him. 'First, let me hear from the First Finder, who discovered the corpse.'

Reluctantly, the builder stepped forward and stood before John de Wolfe. In response to some impatient prompting, he said that he was Roger Short, a carpenter, who was adapting the building for use as an additional lecture room. Describing how he had unearthed the cadaver from the angle between the upper floor and the rafters, he went on to emphasise that he had rushed to report it to the magister. Roger wanted to avoid any amercement for delay and promptly passed the buck to James Anglicus.

After determining that the carpenter had no idea who the body was nor how it had got there, de Wolfe asked him a last question. 'How long would you say it had been up in that loft?'

The scruffy little builder hitched up his sagging breeches and shrugged. 'Hard to tell, sir. There was a thick layer of dust all over the rubbish that covered him, so that hadn't been moved in a long time. Months, I'd say.'

Roger had nothing else to contribute and thankfully stepped back, allowing Walter Pole to take his place. De Wolfe got him to repeat the reasons why he thought the corpse was that of Matthew Morcok.

'This deformity of the arm bone will be shown to you all in a moment,' the coroner promised the jury. 'Meanwhile, I will presume that you agree that the body is that of the cordwainer.'

Then he moved on to the contentious matter of Presentment of Englishry, which he had to explain to them, well aware that they resented the financial implications.

'After King William first took possession of this country, many Saxons took it upon themselves to slay what they considered to be Norman invaders,' he began, not shirking his words even though there were men of obvious Saxon blood in his audience.

'To discourage this, a heavy murdrum fine is levied on any community amongst whom a man is found murdered, unless his family can prove he is English or Welsh or Scottish.' Again he scowled around the ring of jurors, well aware that over a century after the Battle of Hastings, intermarriage had blurred the distinction between Saxon and Norman. The murdrum fine was now just a cynical means of extracting more taxes from the population, but to the loyal John, the king's law was absolute and he had no option but to carry it out.

'Is there any man here related to Matthew Morcok who can present him as English?'

There was a silence, as de Wolfe had known there would be, as the only kin was a daughter many miles away - and women were not allowed to make presentment, which was normally carried out by two male relatives.

'Then this will be recorded by my clerk in his rolls and it will be up to the justices, when they arrive, to decide upon the amount of the fine.'

There were no other witnesses to call, so Gwyn rounded up the jurors and drove them nearer the doors of the forge. Going inside, he dragged out an old door on which lay the pathetic remains of Matthew Morcok, covered with a dirty piece of canvas from the loft.

'You will all look upon the cadaver before you advise me of your verdict,' said the coroner. 'But first, I will show you this.'

He held up the rusty nail and passed it to Walter Pole, who was the spokesman for the jury. They all passed it from hand to hand and examined it with obvious curiosity.

'This was found driven into the bones of his neck.

You will see the hole it made when you view the remains.' They filed past as Gwyn lifted off the canvas and their reactions varied from the stolid to the revolted. The sight of the twisted, leathery mummy caused some to gasp, but most of the older men, especially those used to the carnage of battle and the cruelties of farming and slaughtering, merely nodded or grunted. When the viewing of the body was complete, de Wolfe again faced the assembled citizens.

'It is clear that this man, who surely must be Matthew Morcok, a master saddler of Priest Street, was foully done to death by a spike being hammered into his spine. When this happened, we cannot tell, but I will assume that it was during the past year, the sixth in the reign of our sovereign lord King Richard.' He paused and his piercing gaze swept along the row of faces before him.

'Who killed Matthew, we do not know, but it is my duty and that of the sheriff to discover that. Until then, the only verdict of this inquest can surely be that he was murdered by some unknown person or persons.' The men shuffled their icy feet on the frozen mud of the yard and looked at each other uncertainly.

'To allow this poor fellow a decent burial at last, I must complete these proceedings - though the inquest can be resumed at any time when further information comes to light. So now confer amongst yourselves and let me know your decision.'

This was said with a final glare that betokened dire consequences for anyone who challenged his decision - and within a moment, Walter Pole had muttered to the men next to him and come back with total agreement.

'We say the man is Matthew Morcok, sir - and he was foully killed against the king's peace.'

That was good enough for de Wolfe, and with a nod at Thomas to get everything down on his parchment, he waved away the crowd, who began drifting towards the street. He beckoned to Walter Pole, the harness maker.

'What about burying this poor fellow?' he asked. 'Are you going to send for his daughter?'

'Our guild will see that everything is done right, Crowner. But I don't think we can wait for the daughter, even if we knew exactly where she lived! It would take two or three weeks to get a message to Oxford, and then for her to get back here.'

John knew that part of the function of the various guilds was to ensure that the widows and families of dead members were looked after and this extended to seeing that deceased guildsmen had a decent funeral if there was no one else to provide for them. But his own duty to the corpse was now fulfilled, apart from finding the murderer, so with a yearning look across the road towards the Bush, he made his way back home for dinner.