Crowner Royal (Crowner John Mysteries) Read online

  As usual, Ranulf was the best informed. ‘I hear that it is likely to be in the Great Hall, for already the Keeper of the Palace is muttering about extra transport to bring in supplies from both the countryside and the city. I suspect that Hubert wishes to keep on the right side of the Queen Mother, for she is still a powerful force on both sides of the Channel, with great influence with her two sons.’

  De Wolfe privately marvelled at the endless capacity for gossip and scandal possessed by these people at court. Most of it went over his head, as he did not know the persons involved – and did not much care about them. The talk went on as they ate their way through the stews, the roasts and the puddings, but eventually Hawise came around to John’s private life.

  ‘I suspect you are a dark horse, Sir John. I heard rumours that you were attached to a very comely Welsh woman before you came to Westminster. Just as sailors have a girl in every port, do coroners have ladies in every jurisdiction?’

  Her husband gave a little snigger at this and John felt like kicking him under the table. How in God’s name did she hear of Nesta? he wondered irritably. But even though Hawise annoyed him greatly, he still found her alluring, with her habit of lowering her eyes and showing those long dark lashes, before lifting them again to give him a languorous look. Perhaps his last two nights of passion had increased his amorous appetite, but he decided that he would not be averse to giving her what she obviously desired.

  It was just as well that Bernard de Montfort diverted his attention at that point, taking the conversation in a different direction.

  ‘It seems the purpose of this forthcoming perambulation is to escort Queen Eleanor to Gloucester to meet her son John,’ he said, folding his hands across his overfilled stomach. ‘I have never met the prince, but I hear that you have had dealings with him in the past. What is he like? We hear such conflicting reports about his character.’

  This was sensitive ground and de Wolfe, though he had very strong views on the subject, was not going to open his mind to a casual acquaintance, especially not knowing where such opinions might be whispered by this garrulous crowd.

  ‘I have never been in his presence either,’ he hedged. ‘He was conspicuously absent from the Crusade and took advantage of his brother’s misfortunes there, as is common knowledge.’

  ‘But were you not in Ireland when he was in charge there?’ persisted the archdeacon, again revealing the depth of his knowledge about de Wolfe and his affairs.

  John grinned wryly. ‘He was not there for long and I never met him. He caused so much chaos with his irresponsible actions that King Henry soon had to recall him.’

  ‘You do not seem overfond of the Count of Mortain,’ said Renaud.

  ‘I have good reason not to be,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘Several times have I been involved in defeating his schemes – though since his failed revolt against the king two years ago, he never acts directly himself, but gets others to do his dirty work!’

  He was thinking of his own brother-in-law, Richard de Revelle, the former sheriff of Devon, as well as the de la Pomeroy family, to say nothing of the bishops of Exeter and of Coventry, all of whom were eager to put John on the throne.

  ‘Will your presence in his court in Gloucester not be an embarrassment to you?’ asked Bernard de Montfort.

  John shrugged. ‘It might be to him, but my back is broad! I have no cause to be concerned about it.’ He paused, then conceded that the prince had been quiet of late, with no more rumours of him continuing to plot against his elder brother.

  Ranulf, sensing that the coroner was uneasy with the turn that the conversation had taken, adroitly steered it back to the slaying of the ironworker. ‘If you have abandoned your interest in the case, John, what will happen now?’

  De Wolfe noticed that the marshal’s man had called him by his Christian name for the first time, and was not averse to that. Ranulf was a pleasant and intelligent person he was glad to have as a friend, even though he must have been more than a decade younger than John.

  ‘The sheriffs have not deigned to confide in me, though I gave them all the information I could, sparse though it was,’ he replied. ‘I presume that they will examine the body themselves and hold some kind of inquiry.’

  The archdeacon nodded. ‘They were in the mortuary shed behind the abbey infirmary late this afternoon, then I saw this sheriff fellow ride off again for the city. I know the corpse is to be buried in the cemetery tomorrow, but I heard nothing about any public inquest, such as you hold.’

  John gave one of his throat-clearings, a catch-all response he was fond of when he had nothing useful to say. It annoyed him to think that the self-important Robert fitz Durand seemed to be making little effort to investigate the murder and in spite of his claim to have washed his hands of the whole affair, he had an urge to find out more for himself. When the meal was finished, they all dispersed, Hawise d’Ayncourt giving him another languorous smile, as she trailed reluctantly behind her husband.

  De Wolfe made straight for the Deacon alehouse, where he guessed that Gwyn would be found yarning and drinking. He beckoned to his henchman and Gwyn rather reluctantly drained the remaining pint of ale in his quart pot and followed him out into the street. It was still only early evening and there would be full daylight for several more hours.

  ‘I have a fancy to take a look at the house where that fellow was killed,’ he announced, setting off towards Tothill Street.

  ‘I thought you had given up that matter, Crowner?’ grumbled his officer. ‘The body has long gone, so what are we seeking?’

  De Wolfe shrugged as he loped along the street, avoiding the culvert in the middle which carried a sluggish stream of effluent.

  ‘I don’t know, but if we never look, we’ll never find out!’

  Still mystified as to his master’s change of heart, Gwyn ambled along with him. They went partway down Tothill Street, which was behind the abbey, and then up the narrow alley of Duck Lane. The dwellings were meaner here, mostly low shacks of cob and thatch, but a few were two-storeyed and some were built of planks with shingled roofs.

  ‘How d’you know which one it is?’ asked Gwyn. ‘Even our nosey little clerk didn’t tell us that.’

  John promptly demonstrated his method by grabbing one of the ragged urchins who were now following them and impishly imitating his long strides.

  ‘Where did the blacksmith live, the one who was killed?’ he demanded, holding the boy by his ear. Squealing in exaggerated agony, the lad pointed up the lane, almost to the end.

  ‘Where the sign is hanging, sir. Miserable old sod, he was, too!’

  John released him with a grin and marched on to the house he indicated, with its rusty trade sign hanging over the door. It was one of the larger dwellings, with an upper storey and tightly shuttered windows facing the lane. The heavy door was similarly tight shut and Gwyn, after a futile push against it with his shoulder, looked enquiringly at the coroner. ‘Now what do we do? Break in?’

  ‘Around the back, I think! That’s where Thomas said the blood was found.’ He dived down a narrow alley between the house and the smaller cottage next to it and came out in a yard where a few scrawny chickens were pecking around a pile of chopped firewood. They found little sustenance there on the bare beaten earth, but the dilapidated fence allowed them to roam out on to the marshes, which stretched away into the distance. A privy, a store-shed full of iron rods and what was presumably a kitchen hut were the only structures in the yard, but near the back door was evidence of the violent crime that must have been perpetrated the previous night. A patch of earth a yard across was stained a dull red and although this had soaked into the soil, there were still a few small areas of dried blood in the centre.

  ‘Must have lost a lot,’ observed Gwyn. ‘Though from what we saw of the state of the corpse, it’s not surprising.’

  De Wolfe grunted and turned his attention to the door. Unlike the front entrance, this was a flimsy collection of thin planks with no lock. After giv
ing it an experimental shake, John put his eye to the crack and saw a wooden bar on the inside. He gave a nod to his officer and Gwyn almost casually lifted a large foot and with a single blow, the door flew open, the socket holding the bar flying off the doorpost.

  ‘That bloody sheriff would probably have us both hanged for this, if he knew,’ he chuckled.

  ‘I doubt he’ll ever bother to come back here,’replied John, as he went into the house. The back room was a large workshop and forge, a stone chimney going up through the roof. The furnace was cold and the large bellows silent. Although there was an anvil in the centre, much of the dead man’s labours seemed to be on a smaller scale, carried out on several workbenches of grey slate.

  ‘What sort of blacksmith was he, I wonder?’ asked Gwyn. ‘He doesn’t seem to make ploughshares or mend wagon tyres.’

  The answer came when they moved into the other room at the front of the house, which seemed to be both another workshop for finer details and a place to display and sell his wares. Several tables were littered with wrought-iron candlesticks, sconces, brackets of various types, doorhandles, locks, hinges and a host of smaller items fashioned from metal.

  Gwyn picked up several and examined them closely. ‘This is fine work, he seems more of an artist than an ironsmith.’

  De Wolfe was looking at the confused array of objects on the workbenches. This was obviously where Osbert Morel made his masterpieces, as many were half-finished, lying amongst discarded tools and pieces of raw iron. Several vices were attached to the benches and scraps of metal and a dusting of grey filings and scurf lay over everything.

  ‘Not a tidy craftsman, but he was seemingly a talented one,’ observed John, as he picked up a few objects and laid them down again. Some were unidentifiable and he turned them over with his fingers, trying to puzzle out what they were, such as a foot-long rod, engraved with marks an inch apart. Another was a small wooden box the length of a hand, which was full of what appeared to be either soap or firm grease. He was just about to pass this to Gwyn for comment, when a voice came from the open doorway.

  ‘Who the devil are you – and what are you doing?’

  De Wolfe turned to see a man in his twenties scowling at them suspiciously. He was dressed in a plain brown tunic and breeches and John guessed that he might be a journeyman in some craft. He had sandy hair and a round, open face, though at the moment that conveyed nervous indignation.

  De Wolfe countered his question with one of his own. ‘And who might you be?’ he snapped. ‘This is the scene of a violent death.’

  The younger man flushed. ‘I am all too well aware of that! It was my own father who died!’ Explanations followed and it became evident that the man was Simon, the only son of the slain ironmaster who had been called from the nearby village of Charing, where he lived and worked as a carpenter. Thankfully, Simon did not query why the Coroner of the Verge was involved, even though he disclosed that he had been interrogated by the city sheriff a few hours earlier.

  ‘I returned to collect some of my father’s tools and to see if there is any good clothing that I should take back to Charing. Once it is known that the house is empty and unguarded, the folk around here will soon pillage anything of value.’

  Again, Simon seemed oblivious to the fact that they had burst in through the back door, presumably accepting that a royal law officer had the right to do anything he pleased.

  ‘Have you any idea who might have wished your father harm?’ asked de Wolfe.

  The carpenter shook his head. ‘We were not that close, since I married and went to live in Charing a few years ago. But he was just a craftsman, like myself. Who would wish to kill him?’

  ‘I was told that he has not been robbed. Is that true?’

  Simon nodded. ‘When I was here earlier with the other officers, they gave me my father’s money chest. It was a small thing, but had a reasonable sum in it. It was not hidden, just left in his sleeping room upstairs. Any thief would have found it in the twinkling of an eye.’

  John grudgingly allowed his estimation of Sheriff Robert fitz Durand to rise, learning that he had not dipped his hand into the money chest, but restored it straight away to the family. However, this did not help him in any way to understand the motive for the crime. He waved a hand around the workshop.

  ‘Is there anything here that is out of place or missing?’ he asked. ‘Though I admit it would be hard to tell, given the appearance of the place.’

  Again, the son could not help, saying that he had not visited for the past month and that the workshop was always as chaotic as this. ‘His living quarters are better, sir,’ he added in defence of his dead father. ‘There is no disorder up there.’

  Nothing further could be learned from the man and with some rather gruff condolences and a promise that the house would be made secure, they watched Simon leaving, clutching some of the tools and a bundle of clothing.

  John waited in the yard, morosely studying the pool of dried blood, while Gwyn found a hammer and nails amongst the litter in the workshop, which he used to roughly repair the door.

  On the way back to the alehouse for a final drink, the coroner bemoaned his inability to round up the people who knew the victim and grill them for any knowledge of the man and his affairs.

  ‘That bloody sheriff can’t have made any worthwhile enquiries,’ he growled. ‘In the short time he was here today, he would never have been able to find any witnesses – and by the sound of it, he’s not even going to hold an inquest.’

  Gwyn hunched his broad shoulders in a gesture of dismissal. ‘Well, although it’s a mystery, it’s nothing to do with us now, Crowner. We’ll never hear any more of it, I reckon.’

  Gwyn was not often wrong, but this was a glaring exception.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In which Crowner John comes under suspicion

  The next morning brought a genuine case to the Coroner of the Verge, one that needed no consideration about involving the city or Middlesex. It was no mystery or even a crime, but had to be dealt with according to the law. A mason’s labourer had been crushed to death by a large block of stone which fell from the top of the second storey of the Treasury building, on the river side of the front of the Great Hall.

  This edifice had previously been wooden, but during the past few years had been progressively rebuilt in stone. The balustrade around the top, surrounding the pitched slate roof, was the last part to be completed.

  ‘They send me idiots as workmen!’ fumed the master mason, who was in charge of the construction. He was standing at the foot of the wall where the accident had taken place, with de Wolfe and his officer and clerk staring at the mess on the ground. Some of the mess was bloody, being the still shape of the dead workman, pinned under a quarter-ton block of Caen limestone imported from Normandy. Around it was a tangle of splintered timber and rope, the remains of the derrick that had been hauling up the block.

  As other men prepared to lever off the stone to retrieve the body, the coroner listened to the mason’s diatribe about the uselessness of his workforce, who had improperly secured the tripod on the parapet.

  ‘The fools allowed the sheer-legs to lean out too far and overbalance with the weight of this heavy block,’ he ranted. ‘May the Blessed Virgin bar me from Heaven for all eternity, if I lie when I say that I have repeatedly told those men exactly what to do and how to do it!’

  John allowed the fiery builder to let off steam, then told Gwyn and Thomas to organise a jury for an inquest in an hour’s time, as this seemed a straightforward, if tragic event. It was obvious that the master mason felt both guilty and vulnerable to criticism, which was why he was so incensed at his men and intent on passing the blame down the line.

  The inquest, held in a vacant bay of the adjacent Great Hall, was short and unremarkable, a dozen workmen being empanelled as witnesses and jurors. A few people came to the proceedings, including the Clerk of Works and the Keeper, Nathaniel de Levelondes, who was ultimately responsible for the
running of the palace. Also present were several of the senior Chancery and Treasury clerks, as the building operations concerned their departments of state.

  Amongst the few curious onlookers, John was rather surprised to see Renaud de Seigneur and his wife. He could only assume that having exhausted the sights of London, they seized on any diversion to fill their time until the old queen came and they could go on their way to Gloucester and Hereford.

  The inevitable verdict of accident was dictated by de Wolfe to the jury. He added a comment before dismissing them.

  ‘I see no point in declaring the errant derrick and block of limestone as “deodands”, even though they were the immediate instruments that caused death,’ he boomed, glowering around at the bemused faces of the jury. ‘It seems pointless to confiscate them or declare their value as a fine, when the proceeds would only go back to the Crown, who owned them in the first place!’

  Leaving the Keeper to deal with any disciplinary proceedings against the master mason or his men for negligence, the inquest concluded and the participants melted away from the huge hall. Anxious to get back to Osanna’s dinner, de Wolfe and his officer set out across New Palace Yard for the main gate, but were ambushed by Renaud de Seigneur and the delectable Hawise.

  ‘That was a most effective demonstration of justice,’ effused the husband. ‘We do not have such a system in Blois, though of course our neighbours in Normandy have coroners.’

  John felt that he was talking for the sake of making a noise, rather than from any real interest, but courtesy obliged him to stop and listen, aware that Gwyn was glowering behind him, his stomach rumbling audibly at the prospect of dinner being delayed.

  John muttered a few platitudes about the advantages of Hubert Walter’s importation of coroners from across the Channel, as he tried to edge away and make his escape from this clinging pair. Hawise, in an equally clinging gown of pale-blue linen, under a pelisse of cream silk, pouted as she reluctantly stood aside. ‘You are always rushing away somewhere, Sir John!’ she complained. ‘No doubt you have important matters to attend to, but I am glad that I had the chance to see you perform today.’