The Sanctuary Seeker Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  By Bernard Knight

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  Maps

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  By Bernard Knight

  The Crowner John Series

  CROWNER’S CRUSADE

  THE SANCTUARY SEEKER

  THE POISONED CHALICE

  CROWNER’S QUEST

  THE AWFUL SECRET

  THE TINNER’S CORPSE

  THE GRIM REAPER

  FEAR IN THE FOREST

  THE WITCH HUNTER

  FIGURE OF HATE

  THE ELIXIR OF DEATH

  THE NOBLE OUTLAW

  THE MANOR OF DEATH

  CROWNER ROYAL

  A PLAGUE OF HERETICS

  The Richard Pryor Forensic Mysteries

  WHERE DEATH DELIGHTS

  ACCORDING TO THE EVIDENCE

  GROUNDS FOR APPEAL

  The Tom Howden Mysteries

  DEAD IN THE DOG

  THE SANCTUARY SEEKER

  A Crowner John Mystery

  Bernard Knight

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain by Pocket Books, 1998

  A division of Simon & Schuster

  A Viacom Company

  This eBook first published in 2014 by Severn House Digital an imprint of Severn House Publishers Ltd.

  Copyright © 1998 Bernard Knight

  The right of Bernard Knight to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13 978-1-4483-0123-2 (ePub)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which is was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicably copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Author’s Note

  Any attempt to give modern English dialogue an ‘olde worlde’ flavour in historical novels is as inaccurate as it is futile. In the time and place of this story, late twelfth-century Devon, most people would have spoken early Middle English, unintelligible to us at the present time. Many others would speak western Welsh, later called Cornish, and the ruling classes would have spoken Norman French. The language of the Church and virtually all official writing was Latin.

  Exeter Cathedral, as described in these pages, is not the same building as can be seen today, with the exception of the two massive towers, which were there in Crowner John’s time.

  Glossary

  ABJURER

  A criminal who sought sanctuary in a church and elected to ‘abjure’ by confessing his sin to the coroner and leaving the realm of England for ever, to avoid being hanged.

  ACRE

  City on the north coast of Palestine, where Richard the Lionheart landed in June 1191 during the Third Crusade. A two-year siege by other crusaders had failed to dislodge the Saracens, but Richard succeeded within a month, much to the chagrin of his French and German allies.

  AMERCE

  To impose a financial penalty (fine) on a person or village. The coroner (q.v.) would not collect it straight away, but record the amercement on his parchment rolls to present to the King’s justices when they came; they would confirm or cancel the fine.

  ARCHDEACON

  A senior clergyman, responsible for the administration of areas within a diocese. Bishops in Norman times were rarely resident and their archdeacons ran affairs for them. In the diocese of Devon and Cornwall, there were three Archdeacons, one responsible for Exeter.

  ASSART

  A new piece of arable land cut from the forest, to enlarge the holdings of a village.

  BAILIFF

  Overseer of a manor or estate, directing the farming and other outside work. A steward or seneschal (q.v.) might be above him in a large establishment; he would have reeves working under him.

  BALDRIC

  A diagonal strap over the right shoulder of a Norman warrior to suspend his sword scabbard on the left hip.

  CANON

  A member of the cathedral chapter (see Prebendary).

  BURGAGE

  A town property, usually a house on a plot, occupied by a burgess.

  BURGESS

  A freeman of substance in a town, usually a merchant or craftsman. A group of burgesses ran the town administration and elected the portreeves or later a mayor.

  CAPUCIN

  Medieval headgear, consisting of a long length of cloth wound round the head rather like a turban, the free end hanging down to one shoulder.

  CHAPTER

  The administrative body of a cathedral, composed of the canons (or prebendaries) and the senior clergy. They met in the chapter house, usually attached to the cathedral. The name derived from the reading of a chapter of the gospels before each meeting.

  CONSISTORY COURTS

  The ecclesiastical courts, which had the right to try clerics, rather than the secular courts. Anyone who could read and write could claim to be tried by this court, as literacy was virtually confined to the clergy.

  CONSTABLE

  Has many meanings, but in the twelfth-century context, a senior military commander, often the custodian of a castle, alternatively called a castellan.

  CORONER

  Senior law officer in a county, after the sheriff, first officially appointed in September 1194, though there is a mention of a coroner in Saxon times. The name derives from the Latin custos placitorum coronae, meaning Keeper of the Pleas of the Crown, as he recorded all crimes and legal events for the King’s justices.

  CROFT

  A small area of land around a village house (toft), for vegetables and a few livestock, used by the occupier (cottar), who was either a freeman or a bondsman (villein or serf).

  CUIRASS

  A breastplate or short tunic, originally of thick leather but later of metal, to protect the chest in combat.

  DEODAND
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  Literally ‘a gift from God’, it was the forfeiture of anything that had caused a death, such a sword, a cart or even a mill-wheel. It was confiscated by the coroner for the King, or sometimes given as compensation to the victim’s family.

  EYRE

  A meeting of the King’s judges to decide legal cases; the General Eyre was introduced by Henry II to bring justice to the people by the judges moving from county to county to try cases. Later these became the Assizes (‘sittings’) and in modern times, the Crown Courts.

  HAUBERK (OR BYRNIE)

  A chain-mail tunic to armour the wearer from neck to knees; often had a hood extension (aventail) to reach under the helmet and sleeves to the elbow.

  HONOUR

  A holding of land from the King, Baron or Church. It might be a large estate or a single manor. A manor might be one village or several, under the same lord. Some large villages were split between manors. The administration of a manor was run by a steward and one or more bailiffs, under whom were the manor reeves (q.v.)

  JURY

  Unlike modern juries, the medieval jury were witnesses, local people who were obliged to gather to tell what they knew of a crime or dispute. The coroner’s jury was supposed to be all men over twelve years of age from the four nearest villages, though this was often a practical impossibility.

  JUSTICIAR

  The chief minister in Norman times, a great noble or churchman appointed by the king. In the reign of Richard I, there were several justiciars, the most effective being Hubert Walter, who was Richard’s military second-in-command in Palestine before returning home during the king’s imprisonment in Austria to help raise his ransom. Richard made him Archbishop of Canterbury and Chief Justiciar, and he virtually ruled the country after Richard’s permanent departure from England only two months after returning from captivity.

  MANOR REEVE

  A foreman appointed in each village by the lord of a manor to oversee the daily routine. He would allot the farming work to the freemen and serfs and, though illiterate, by means of memory and tally-sticks (marks cut on sticks to check numbers), he would keep a record of crop rotation, harvest yields and tithes, etc.

  MURDRUM FINE

  A fine or amercement (q.v.) levied on a village by the coroner when a person is found slain and the locals cannot ‘present Englishry’, thus raising the presumption that they had murdered a Norman.

  ORDEAL

  An ancient ritual, abolished by the Vatican in 1215, where suspects were subjected to painful or potentially fatal ordeals, such as walking across nine red-hot ploughshares, carrying a red-hot iron bar nine paces, picking a stone from a barrel of boiling water or molten lead, licking white-hot iron, etc. If they suffered no injury, they were judged innocent; another ordeal was to be thrown bound into deep water – if they floated they were guilty, if they sank, innocent!

  OUTLAW

  Literally, anyone outside the law, usually an escaped criminal or a fugitive. They often lurked in the forests and any person was entitled to kill them on sight to collect a bounty, as they were ‘as the wolf’s head’.

  OUTREMER

  The four Christian kingdoms in the Levant at the time of the Crusades, including the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

  PHTHISIS

  Tuberculosis.

  PORTREEVE

  One of the senior officials in a town, elected by the other burgesses. There were usually two portreeves, later superseded by a mayor. The first mayor in Exeter took office in 1208.

  PREBENDARY

  A canon of a cathedral. A priest who is granted a prebend, the income of a church in the diocese to support him. Many canons employed a vicar to look after their parish, while they stayed in the cathedral.

  PRECENTOR

  A senior cleric in a cathedral, responsible for organising the religious services, singing, etc.

  PRESENTMENT OF ENGLISHRY

  Following the 1066 Conquest, many Normans were killed by aggrieved locals, so the law decreed that anyone found dead was Norman and the locals punished by a murdrum fine (q.v.) unless they could prove the deceased was English (or Welsh). The presentment of Englishry by relatives of murdered people continued for several hundred years, as even though it became meaningless it was good source of revenue.

  SANCTUARY

  An ancient religious offer of mercy, where a fugitive from pursuit or a gaol-breaker could claim forty days immunity from the law if he reached a church or even the precincts of a church. This was not available for crimes of sacrilege.

  SENESCHAL

  The senior steward or head of the staff of a great household.

  SHERIFF

  A ‘shire-reeve’, the King’s representative in a county, responsible for law and order and the collection of royal taxes.

  TITHE

  A tenth part of the harvest, demanded by the church.

  UNDERCROFT

  The ground floor of a fortified building. The entrance to the rest of the building was on the floor above, which had no communication with the undercroft. Removable wooden steps prevented attackers from being able to storm the main door.

  Acknowledgements

  The author would like to thank the following for historical advice, though reserving the blame for any misapprehensions about the complexities of life and law in twelfth century Devon; Mrs Angela Doughty, Exeter Cathedral Archivist; the staff of Devon Record Office and of Exeter Central Library; Mr Stuart Blaylock, Exeter Archaeology; Rev Canon Mawson, Exeter Cathedral; Mr Thomas Watkin, Cardiff Law School, University of Wales; Professor Nicholas Orme, University of Exeter; and to Clare Ledingham, Editorial Director at Simon & Schuster, for her unfailing interest and support.

  CHAPTER ONE

  In which Crowner John rides to Widecombe

  The three riders plodded miserably along the rutted track. The hoofs of their animals splashed in the muddy water that trickled down to meet the Webburn river, a mile away. Leading the trio, Crowner John cursed as he felt the rain beginning to trickle from the edge of his leather hood into the neckband of his cloak. Even the hardships he had endured during the Crusades or the Irish campaigns had failed to immunise him against the purgatory of a wet autumn in the West Country.

  Close behind his great grey stallion came a brown mare, carrying the gaunt shape of the coroner’s bodyguard, his ginger hair wrapped turban-wise in an oat-sack that dripped water down his frayed leather cuirass. ‘I thought November was for fog on these bloody moors, not this endless rain,’ he grumbled. Though he knew Saxon English well enough, Gwyn of Polruan spoke in his native Cornish, mainly to annoy the third member of the party.

  ‘Stop complaining, if that’s what you were doing in that barbaric tongue!’ whined the man bringing up the rear. He was half the size of the other two and sat his mule side-saddle, like a woman. An unfrocked priest, Thomas de Peyne was the coroner’s clerk and, in Gwyn’s eyes, as evil a little bastard as ever fouled the soil of Devon.

  The weather had frayed their tempers more than usual, though they were ever a quarrelsome band. It was now more than three hours since they had left Exeter and the ceaseless downpour along the eastern edge of Dartmoor was enough to rot a man’s soul.

  At last, the coroner’s horse breasted the ridge at the edge of Rippon Tor and Sir John de Wolfe could look down with relief on the wretched hamlet that was their destination. He brushed the rain off his eyebrows and wiped the drops from his hooked nose as he reined in his stallion. A tall, dark, sinewy man, John had a pair of deep-set, brooding eyes surmounting a long face with high cheekbones. It was a face that was not given to much humour – not that his previous soldiering life had offered much to laugh about.

  The two other riders stopped alongside him and they sat in a row, gazing down without enthusiasm on the saturated countryside. To their right, a grey slope of bare moorland swept up to the granite crags of Chinkwell Tor and Hameldown Beacon, stark against the skyline. Below, the land canted away to the left, with clumps of trees thickening to forest as the moor g
ave way in the distance to the Dart valley. Strips of cultivated fields filled the middle foreground, with a dozen mean houses clustered around a wooden church. Further away they could see a band of dense woodland, beyond which drifting smoke indicated the next village, which the coroner thought to be Dunstone, though the few available maps of Dartmoor were a mixture of fact and speculation.

  ‘Another God-forsaken place,’ complained the hunchbacked clerk, in his irritating high-pitched voice. At frequent intervals he crossed himself nervously, where another man would pick his nose or belch.

  John tapped his horse’s belly with his heel. ‘Come on, let’s see what they’ve got for us.’

  He led the trio down the slope, their mounts picking their way carefully over the slippery mud and stones of the path down to the village of Widecombe.

  A hundred paces from the muddy mound that served as the village green, they were met by a man with a reeve’s staff, who had ambled out of the nearest thatched hut. He was a rough-looking fellow, with unkempt hair plastered to his skull by the rain. Touching his brow in a grudging salute, he approached the grey horse. ‘You this crowner man, then?’ he demanded.

  The rider glared down at him from under heavy black eyebrows that matched the dark stubble on his face, for against the fashion of the times he had no beard or moustache. With his black hood and dark riding cloak, he looked like a great raven perched on the horse.

  ‘Sir John de Wolfe to you, fellow! The King’s coroner in this county – so show some respect, will you?’ Though not a vain man, John was conscious of his new royal appointment, foreign though it might be to most people in this westerly limb of Coeur de Lion’s kingdom.

  The manor reeve caught the snap in the coroner’s voice and became vastly more deferential. ‘Yessir, begging your pardon. Ralph the reeve, I am. Come indoors out of the rain, sirs.’

  They squelched after him through the cattle-churned mud towards his long-house. Though the best in the village, it was a rickety low structure of frame and wattle, with a roof of tattered straw that sprouted grass and green moss. One end was a byre, from which came the lowing of cattle, most destined soon for the butcher’s knife as few could be kept fed through the coming winter.