Figure of Hate Page 16

  'I presume you are Sir John de Wolfe. You are welcome to my manor, sir, though I regret that such a sad event brings you to us.'

  John turned to see half a dozen men coming down from the churchyard gate. The speaker, a tall man with a mournful Peverel face, was almost jostled for first place on the narrow path by a younger man whom he recognised as the brother who had been with Hugo Peverel outside the New Inn in Exeter when he had challenged them over the suspect armourer. But what immediately caught his eye was the all-too-familiar figure behind Odo Peverel.

  'Oh, Mary, mother of God!' he groaned under his breath, as he saw his brother-in-law, Richard de Revelle.

  Chapter Seven

  In which Crowner John is frustrated beyond measure

  The castle brooded at the top of Winchester's High Street like a massive grey hen sitting on a nest of buildings. A circular room in one of the towers was used by the Chief Justiciar as his official chamber when he was in the city, which shared with London the functions of England's capital. Though Hubert Walter was also Archbishop of Canterbury, his episcopal duties played second fiddle to the virtual running of the country, as he was regent of England in all but name. A soldier as much as a priest, he had been left to bring back the English Crusaders from the Holy Land after the King had left on his ill-fated voyage home, but on reaching Sicily he heard that Richard had been imprisoned in Austria and Germany. Hubert hurried to visit him there, then returned to England to help retrieve the situation, mainly by devising schemes to raise money and to keep the peace in a troubled country where Prince John was fomenting rebellion.

  As he sat behind his parchment-cluttered table, he took a moment to stare absently through a window slit at a patch of cold blue October sky and wonder why he was so devoted to his king, Richard with the lion's heart. He accepted that the man was selfish, arrogant, greedy and often cruel, but he could also be charming, recklessly generous and ridiculously forgiving, as he been towards his brother John after his failed rebellion. As a monarch, Richard's main concern was with France, and though he had been born in Oxford, England remained nothing more than a colony to him, from which he could extort taxes and men to support his campaigns in Palestine and France. Richard had never bothered to learn to speak English, his queen, Berengaria, had never set foot in the country, and after spending only four months of his reign in England it seemed certain that he would never return, leaving Hubert to administer the realm and raise the vast sums that were needed to pay off his ransom and finance his armies. The justiciar had been thinking a few moments ago of his old fellow campaigner, John de Wolfe, another example of the blind loyalty that the monarch seemed able to engender in the most unromantic of people.

  Black John was not over-endowed with either imagination or much of a sense of humour, but was brave to the point of foolhardiness and almost painfully trustworthy.

  It was these qualities which had decided Hubert, with the full approval of the King, to set John up as coroner in Devon, where he could keep an eye on that scheming potential traitor Richard de Revelle and the band of incipient rebels clustered around Bishop Henry Marshal and some of the barons, such as the de la Pomeroys. The threat posed by Prince John seemed to have abated recently, but it was essential to keep a reliable pair of eyes and ears open down in the West to forestall any secret plots. The recent removal of de Revelle as sheriff made things easier, thought the justiciar - but he doubted that the man's political ambitions had evaporated, and he must still be watched.

  A chancery clerk came in with a fresh bundle of manuscripts and laid them on a corner of the table.

  'These have just come from Shrewsbury and Chester, your Grace,' he said in an oily voice. Sliding the strap of a leather pouch from his shoulder, he laid it before the archbishop with something akin to reverence.

  'And this has arrived from Portsmouth, on the latest cog from Harfleur.'

  After he had bowed himself out, a habit that always irritated the blunt-natured Hubert, the justiciar opened the pouch and took out a parchment roll from which dangled the heavy royal seal. Cutting the tapes and cords with a dagger that he had personally taken from the body of a slain Saracen, he settled back and read the latest missive from the court at Rouen. Some of it was in the King's own hand, for, unlike some of his royal forebears, Richard could wield a quill almost as well as a sword.

  Hubert sat for some time reading the bulky dispatches, his brow furrowing from time to time as some particularly difficult problem was propounded.

  He was a lean, wiry man, and dressed in a plain grey tunic he looked quite unlike the usual over-fed, overdressed prelate, the only concession to his religious stares being a small silver cross hanging around his neck. Eventually, he got to the end of the roll and dropped it back on to the table, reaching instead for a jug of wine and a pewter cup.

  Sipping the rich red blood of the Loire valley, he stared again through the embrasure, though his thoughts were far from the streak of sky visible through the slit. As he mulled over the contents of the missive from the King, his mind's eye travelled westwards to Wales, and then once again settled on the dark stubble and forbidding features of the ever faithful John de Wolfe.

  * * *

  The group of newcomers stood blocking the path to the churchyard gate, glowering at the coroner's trio, who had turned to face them.

  'There's nothing in this for you, John. You were sent for in error, there was some misunderstanding on the part of the bailiff.'

  De Revelle's voice was haughty and condescending, as if he were still the sheriff, dismissing some servant.

  'And what misunderstanding can occur over the murder of a manor-lord, Richard? Can you mean that Hugo Peverel is still alive?'

  John's tone was deceptively mild as he tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, but privately he was livid that this bloody man had turned up to haunt him, after he had thought he had got rid of him for ever.

  They were still standing outside the church porch, the girl now having ceased wriggling in the grip of her captors, her eyes round with bemusement as she found herself the centre of attention of all these high-born men. Richard had pushed himself to the fore and stood between Ralph and Odo, as if he were the new lord Of Sampford rather than one of the Peverels. Joel stepped up on to an old grave mound to stand on Odo's left while behind them the bailiff and steward waited anxiously to see the outcome of this confrontation.

  Outside the gate, a cluster of villagers were gathering, mouths agape as the events of this dramatic day continued to unfold.

  Odo's measured words attempted to reduce the tension that was becoming as tight as a drawn bowstring.

  'We did not intend to bother you with this matter, Sir John. It's a long ride from Exeter and this is a matter that our manor can deal with. You will appreciate that the circumstances of my brother's death are not those which we would want broadcast around the county.'

  Ralph hurriedly forced his own opinion into the dialogue.

  'I want no outside interference, Crowner, this is purely a family issue!'

  His words were less gracious than those of his more mature elder brother and he substituted 'I' for 'we' in his relentless pursuit of the inheritance.

  De Wolfe scowled at them both, resenting Ralph's rudeness.

  'What you may want is of no consequence! It is the King's peace that rules us all, whether you like it or not. Unless any of you are minded to defy the laws of King Richard and his council?'

  He turned his glare full on to de Revelle, and no one was in any doubt as to his insinuation about the former sheriff's political leanings.

  'What are you doing here, may I ask?' he snapped.

  'You no longer have any official authority.' Richard's thick skin allowed him to continue as if he were still in charge and the coroner was the interloper.

  'Though it's none of your business, John, I am here as a friend and neighbour at the express invitation of the Peverel family. They naturally thought that my experience of such crises might be of help
to them.' John had to bite his tongue to prevent himself from observing that his brother-in-law had not the slightest experience of dealing with sudden deaths, having been content when sheriff to4et others do all the dirty work, while he remained in his chamber thinking up more ways of embezzling from the county taxes. Drowning his irritation with a deep breath, he turned to Odo, .

  who, though he had never met him before, he already recognised as the most reasonable of the brothers.

  'Sir, will you tell me what exactly has been happening here? I have had only the bare bones of the matter from your reeve.'

  Forestalling Ralph, the elder Peverel explained how Hugo had gone missing the previous evening and had eventually been found hidden under the hay in the ox byre, with savage Wounds in his back. With neither of the ladies present, -he felt less inhibited in explaining the circumstances.

  'My brother, like so many other active men, was fond of slaking his surplus virility on common drabs like this girl here.'

  'A common and understandable habit, even to be found among senior law officers!' sneered de Revelle, unable to resist a jibe at John's affair with his Welsh tavern-keeper.

  De Wolfe again resisted the temptation to observe that if they were talking about the lusts of senior law officers, he had twice caught de Revelle with Exeter whores. Instead he once more applied himself to Odo.

  'Though I understand from your reeve that the proper procedure of the first finder raising the hue and cry throughout the village was carried out - and that your bailiff quite rightly lost no time in reporting the death to the coroner - you have already committed two breaches of the law!'

  The three brothers stared at the coroner, puzzled that anyone should even consider challenging their absolute authority on their own manor.

  'And what may they be?' demanded Ralph.

  'First, it looks uncommonly as if you have violated the right of every person to seek sanctuary. In addition, the body should have been left where it was found until my arrival, which I am told has not been done here.'

  There was a simultaneous gabble of protest from the Peverels in which de Revelle joined in enthusiastically.

  'Do you seriously expect us to leave the lord of the manor face down in his own ox byre?' raged Ralph.

  'Really, Sir John, you are a Norman knight yourself.' snapped Odo. 'Would you allow your closest relative to stay more than five minutes in such a degrading situation, for villein and serfs to come gaping at?'

  De Wolfe glowered at them. 'I did not make the law, sirs, but I have been appointed to see that they are enforced and that I shall do!' he said stubbornly.

  'Then you are an even greater damned fool than I thought!' bleated Richard offensively. 'Laws are made for the underlings of this world, not those of us who control it. Why do we need waste time on this tragic matter, when it is so patently obvious that this slut is the culprit?'

  John ignored him and turned to the girl and the two men still hanging on to her arms.

  'Let her go, I doubt that she'll attack you,' he said sarcastically to the armourer and the hound-master.

  Then he addressed Agnes, his tone milder as he looked down at the maid, whose mood swung between fear-and indignation. 'I see no point in you going back into the church, girl. There's no need for you to seek sanctuary at this point. I will see that matters are conducted properly.'

  'They'll hang me for sure, sir,' she said sullenly. 'I'm only safe in there.'

  The coroner nodded understandingly. 'You were illegally dragged from sanctuary, so I promise that if things go ill with you, you can return here. But for now, you must go home until I come to ask you some questions. D'you understand?'

  She nodded, but she was still in the grip of her captors, who looked uncertainly from the coroner to the group barring his way to the gate.

  'This is beyond your jurisdiction, Sir John!' boomed Odo. 'Have you the power to override our wishes?'

  'John, you are insufferable!' brayed de Revelle. 'You have no right to interfere in this way, trying to ride roughshod over ancient manor laws!'

  Gwyn moved closer to his master as the four men took a step nearer John and his hand moved gently to the hilt of his sword, but the coroner thrust his dark head aggressively towards his brother-in-law.

  'No right? I've every right, and if you deny it you'll answer to the King and his ministers!' he snarled. 'I was appointed to keep the pleas of the Crown and part of those duties is the investigation of deaths from foul play. Another of my tasks is the taking of confessions from sanctuary-seekers and administering the abjuration of the realm. Both seem very relevant here and neither are any part of manorial jurisdiction!'

  'Dealing with breaches of the peace is sheriff's business,' bleated Richard.

  'And you are no longer the sheriff.' retorted John. 'Not that you did much about keeping the peace when you were one! It so happens that the new sheriff has deputed me to combine his duties with the prosecution of my inquests - with which the justiciar concurs, I might add.'

  This was a fairly loose interpretation of Henry de Furnellis's expressed desire not to become involved with casework, but it would suffice to justify John's free hand in investigations. He scowled at the three brothers in turn, defying them to contradict him, especially as he had deliberately laboured the fact that he was a direct agent of the King's chief minister.

  'Now, to business! I need to examine the corpse of your unfortunate kinsman and also to see the place where his body was discovered, before you so recklessly moved it.'

  He swung away, and the tension of the moment subsided sufficiently for Gwyn to relax his fingers from around his sword hilt. The coroner looked beyond the indignant group in front of him and beckoned to a couple of women who were among the dozen or so villagers gawping over the churchyard hedge.

  'Take this girl back to her home. Tell the family to keep her there until I come to talk to her.' Under the sheer force of de Wolfe's personality, the brothers reluctantly stood aside. Grim faced, they watched while Agnes was taken by a pair of good-wives out of the gate and up the road towards the squalid cottage where she lived. Then John strode down the few yards of path towards the porch, followed by Gwyn and Thomas. As he passed the two men who had dragged the girl from the church, he jabbed a forefinger into the chest of Robert Longus, the bearded armourer.

  'I want words with you later on another matter! You are now under attachment for failing to attend my inquest in Exeter.'

  Without waiting for a response, he vanished into the building with his two assistants, followed more slowly by the three brothers and Richard de Revelle. The rotund Irish priest had scurried ahead, and when John's eyes had adjusted to the dim light coming from a few shuttered slits in the wooden walls, he saw that Father Patrick was standing before a simple altar at the far end. The floor of beaten earth was empty of any furniture, but around the side walls were narrow benches for the old and infirm to rest during services, the rest of the congregation having to stand. There was no separate chancel, the church being a simple oblong, with a large wooden cross hanging on the east wall above the altar, between two of the window slits. The light from these fell on a wooden bier, a narrow table with carrying handles at each corner, on which lay a still shape under a linen sheet.

  De Wolfe marched up to one side of this, Gwyn taking up a position opposite. Thomas stood at the foot, bending his knee and crossing himself jerkily, his eyes fixed reverently on the brass cross on the altar table.

  As the coroner nodded to his officer to pull off the shroud, Ralph Peverel strutted forward in protest.

  'Is this necessary, Crowner? Why can you not let my brother rest in peace?'

  'Murder is murder, sir! Have you no desire to discover who took his life and see justice done to his killer?'

  'Of course. But the deed has been done - what use is it to defile the dead further by your examination?'

  His elder brother now came and put a restraining hand on Ralph's arm.

  'The coroner has his duty to perfor
m and we must tolerate anything which leads to the discovery of the perpetrator of this foul crime,' he said in a conciliatory tone, strengthening John's impression that, although a miserable sort of fellow, he was the most reasonable member of this prickly family. He had already dismissed the junior brother Joel as an immature and feckless young man.

  Gwyn pulled the sheet back from the corpse's face and folded it down to lie across the feet. Hugo was dressed in a short tunic of dull yellow that came to mid-thigh, under which were woollen hose ending in pointed leather shoes. He wore a belt with a small dagger sheathed at the left side and a small scrip purse on the other. Wisps of hay and straw adhered to his clothing and his dark red hair.

  'Can you not close his eyes, for decency's sake?' snapped Ralph, determined to be as critical as possible.

  John bent to look closely at the blue eyes, which stared upward at the inside of the roof, where small birds chirruped and fluttered among the woven hazel withies that supported the thatch. The fronts of the orbs were already becoming flattened and cloudy with death, but otherwise the eyes were normal.

  'No bleedings into the whites, nothing at all,' he muttered to Gwyn, and with his fingers he drew down the lids. The rest of the face had the pallor of death, and when he pushed down on the point of the chin he felt that the jaw was locked solid.

  'He's stone cold and as rigid as a plank,' he announced, half to himself. 'Been dead many hours, that's for sure.'

  'We don't need a coroner to tell us that,' sneered Joel. 'He was found earlier this morning and has been missing since last night!'

  De Wolfe ignored him and nodded again at his officer. Gwyn, a veteran of scores of similar procedures, began his ritual of exposing the rest of the body to his master. He undid the belt and pulled up the tunic and undershirt, revealing the separate legs of the hose, supported by laces tied to a thong around the waist. John turned to the brothers and their servants, who were clustered behind Thomas at the foot of the bier.