The Noble Outlaw Read online

  KIRTLE

  A ladies' floor-length gown. Many variations of style and fit, especially of the sleeves, existed in the fashion conscious medieval period.

  LEAT OR LEET

  An artificial water channel usually constructed to drain a marsh or to conduct water into an ore-washing system during tin extraction.

  MAGISTER

  A learned teacher in a school or early university.

  MANOR-REEVE

  A villien in a manor elected by his unfree fellows to represent them. He organised their daily labours and was in turn responsible to the lord's bailiff or steward.

  MANTLE

  A cloak, either circular with a hole for the head, or open-fronted with the top being closed either by a large brooch on the shoulder or by a top corner being pulled through a ring sewn to the opposite shoulder.

  MATINS

  The first of nine offices of the religious day, originally observed at midnight or in the early hours.

  ORDEAL

  A test of guilt or innocence, such as walking over nine red-hot ploughshares with bare feet or picking a stone from a barrel of boiling water. If burns appeared within a certain time, the person was judged guilty and hanged. There was also the Ordeal of Battle where a legal dispute was settled by combat. For women, submersion in water was the ordeal: the guilty floated. Ordeals were forbidden by the Lateran Council in 1215.

  OUTLAW

  A man who did not submit to legal processes. Usually an escaped felon or suspect, a runaway sanctuary seeker or abjurer, he was declared 'outlaw' - by a writ of exigent _ if he did not answer to a summons on four consecutive sessions of the county court. An outlaw was legally dead, with no rights whatsoever, and could be legally slain on the spot by anyone. If caught by a law officer, he was hanged. A female could not be outlawed, but was declared 'waif', which was very similar.

  OUTREMER

  Literally 'over the sea', the term was used to refer to the countries in the Levant, especially the Holy Land.

  PELISSE

  An outer garment worn by both men and women with a fur lining for winter wear. The fur could be sable, rabbit, marten, cat, et cetera.

  POSSE

  The posse comitatus, introduced by Henry II, was the title given to a band of men raised by a sheriff to hunt felons or enemies of the realm across the county.

  PREBENDARY

  The canon of a cathedral, deriving an income from his prebend, a tract of land granted to him (see canon).

  PRESENTMENT

  At coroner's inquests, a corpse was presumed to be that of a Norman, unless the locals could prove 'Englishry' by presenting such evidence from the family. If they could not, a 'murdrum' fine was imposed on the community by the coroner, on the assumption that Normans were murdered by the Saxons they had conquered in 1066. Murdrum fines became a cynical device to extort money, persisting for several hundred years after the Conquest, by which time it was virtually impossible to differentiate the two races.

  QUIRE

  The area within a church between the nave and the presbytery and altar, which gave rise to the name' choir'. The quire was usually separated from the nave by a carved rood screen at the chancel arch, bearing a large crucifix above it.

  SACKBUT

  A medieval wind instrument similar to a trombone.

  SANCTUARY

  An ancient act of mercy: a fugitive from justice could claim forty days' respite if he gained the safety of a church or even its environs. After that time, unless he confessed to the coroner, he was shut in and starved to death. If he confessed, he could abjure the realm (q.v.).

  SERGEANT

  The term was used in several ways, denoting inter alia an administrative/legal officer in a county hundred, or a military rank of a senior man-at-arms.

  SECONDARIES

  Young men aspiring to become priests and under twenty-four years of age. They assisted canons and vicars in their duties in the cathedral.

  SHERIFF

  The 'shire reeve', the king's representative in each county, responsible for law and order and the collection of taxes. The office was eagerly sought after as it was lucrative; both barons and senior churchmen bought the office from the king at high premiums, some holding several shrieval ties at the same time. Sheriffs were notorious for dishonesty and embezzlement - in 1170, the Lionheart’s father, Henry II, sacked all his sheriffs and heavily fined many for malpractice. The sheriff in earlier Crowner John books, Richard de Revelle, though fictional, was named after the actual Sheriff of Devon in 1194-95. He was appointed early in 1194, then lost office for reasons unknown; he returned to office later in the year but was dismissed again in the following year.

  SOLAR

  A room built on to the main hall of a castle or house for the use of the lord or owner, usually for the use of the lady during the daytime and often as a bedroom at night.

  UMBLE PIE

  The umbles were the less desirable parts of venison, such as the offal. Especially at Christmas, they were given by a lord to the poorer people to make 'umble pie', from which the expression 'to eat humble pie' arose as an indicator of subservient status.

  VICAR

  A priest employed by a more senior cleric, such as a canon, to carry out some of his religious duties, and especially to attend the many daily services in the cathedral. Such a priest was often called a 'vicar-choral' because of his participation in chanted services.

  WIMPLE

  A linen or silk cloth worn by women to cover the neck and upper chest, the upper ends being pinned to their hair to frame the face.

  WOLF'S HEAD

  An outlaw was said to be 'as the wolf's head', for like a wolf, he could be beheaded with impunity and a bounty of five shillings could be claimed from the sheriff.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Exeter, December 1195

  In which Crowner John goes back to school

  Even Thomas de Peyne, still squeamish after serving for more than a year as coroner's clerk, found little to upset him in the appearance of this particular corpse.

  What little flesh that could be seen reminded him more of the cheap dried cod that hung from the fishmongers' stalls than of a human being. The leathery face and shrivelled hands protruding from the mouldering clothes looked unreal, like some amateur woodcarving.

  'Been here some time, Crowner' boomed the broad Cornish accentof Gwyn of Polruan, the coroner's officer and right-hand man. 'Dried up like an old boot, not a trace of corruption about him.'

  They stood with their master in the back yard of a house in Exeter's Smythen Street, a lane that ran down to Stepcote Hill and the city wall in the southern part of the city. It got its name from the number of smiths' forges and metal-working shops that lay along its length, though a few of the burgages, like the one they were in now, had recently been turned into places of education.

  Behind the main building, which fronted on to the street itself, was a yard with a large outhouse which had been the forge. A square box, it was built of cob plastered on to woven withies held between oak frames. It had a large chamber at ground level, where until recently the furnace and anvils stood. The old forge was roofed with stone tiles, as thatch was too hazardous to use so near the flames and sparks of a smithy. Under this roof lay a loft formerly used for storing iron rods and strips, reached by a crude ladder in the corner. It was there that the corpse had been discovered an hour earlier, before being dragged down to the yard - causing the short-tempered coroner to be incensed even before he had started his investigation.

  'For God's sake, does no one ever obey the law?' snapped Sir John de Wolfe, glaring at the discomfited James Anglicus, the magister of this establishment, one of the new schools in Smythen Street. 'When a dead body is found, it must be left exactly where it was until a coroner can view it in its original surroundings!' He scowled around at the gaping onlookers. 'Who was the First Finder?' he rasped irritably.

  Magister Anglicus, a mournful, middle-aged man in a long cassock of clerical appearanc
e, pointed at a stringy artisan of about the same age, his fustian tunic tucked up between his bare legs and held in place by a leather belt. 'Roger Short here discovered the cadaver. He's the builder that is turning the old forge into another lecture room for me.'

  Roger touched his grubby woollen cap in deference to the coroner. 'Proper shock it was, sir,' he gabbled, displaying a mouthful of rotten black stumps. 'I went to pull up those old boards that floor the loft, to give more headroom. There was a heap of old wood in the angle between the roof rafters and the floor. When I pulled it out, I found him lurking behind.' He jabbed a thumb towards the body lying on the ground. 'My labourer and me hauled him down the ladder straight away, sir. We didn't know we wasn't supposed to, but no one could have got at him up there, tucked tight under the eaves.'

  James Anglicus hurried back into the dialogue, anxious to head off any further criticism. 'Straightway I sent my servant Henry up to the castle to inform either you or the sheriff, Crowner. I could see no point in raising the hue and cry, when obviously this poor creature has been dead for months!'

  The hue and cry was supposed to be implemented whenever a crime was discovered, the four nearest households being knocked up to pursue any miscreant found red-handed at the scene. John de Wolfe recognised that in this case, Anglicus was entirely right; it would have been a waste of effort. He gave one of his all-purpose throat clearings in response and bent over the sad remains of the man that lay on the dusty ground. Gwyn, the red-haired giant who had been his servant and trusted companion for two decades, came to crouch on the other side of the corpse, prodding the hardened skin of the face with a finger the size of a pork sausage.

  'Who the hell is he, I wonder?' he growled.

  'Could he be a Musselman, with that dark complexion?' ventured Thomas timidly, keeping his distance but fascinated by the strange appearance of the cadaver.

  'He's not dark, he's just dried up,' snorted de Wolfe.

  He motioned to his officer, and Gwyn began trying to remove the clothing from the pathetic bundle. The dead man was curved almost into a ball, with his legs drawn up and his head bent down into his arms.

  'Rigid as a plank, Crowner!' he complained. 'Not ordinary death stiffness, he's just dried into a bundle of sticks. I'm afraid of breaking him in half if I try too hard.'

  John de Wolfe dropped to a crouch himself and started to help Gwyn lever off the brown woollen tunic which was peppered with moth holes and nibbled by mice. It ripped easily, which at least helped them to clear it from the body, revealing blue serge breeches underneath.

  'Is it seemly to render the poor fellow naked out in the open?' asked James Anglicus rather pompously.

  'We'll not expose his nether regions here, but I need to know if he has injuries that would make this a felony,' snapped the coroner.

  'I assume he crawled into the loft and had a stroke or seizure, poor fellow,' persisted the magister, anxious to distance his school from any criminal activity.

  The coroner and his henchman ignored him and began looking at the dead man's head, back and chest. Gwyn lifted him over on to his other side, picking him up as if he were a feather. 'Weighs no more than a spring lamb!' he observed. 'All the substance has dried out of him.'

  The corpse's face had shrunk down to a mask of skin, tightly stretched across his jaw and cheekbones. The eyes had collapsed into almost empty sockets and the brittle lips had drawn back into a grinning rictus, revealing large, crooked teeth.

  'Plenty of hair left, though,' observed Gwyn, ruffling a brown thatch which sat above a neck shaved up to a horizontal line level with the top of the ears, a style introduced by the Normans many years earlier.

  'More than you can say for some of the skin,' grunted de Wolfe. 'Look at the back here.'

  From the neck down to the waist, more on the left side, the surface of the body had fared much worse than the face and hands. Decomposition had destroyed much of the skin, exposing ribs and spinal bones. The wet rot had dried up eventually and there was no unpleasant foulness left, but the sight made the sensitive Thomas hurriedly avert his gaze.

  'No sign of injury, Crowner. No stabs, slashes or a smashed head,' said Gwyn in a somewhat disappointed tone. 'Maybe he did suffer from some sort of seizure.'

  De Wolfe climbed to his feet again, uncoiling his long body which, as usual, was dressed all in black and grey.

  James Anglicus, who had never met him before, regarded this powerful man warily, as he was second only to the sheriff in the hierarchy of the county law officers. He saw a tall man with a predatory, slightly menacing stoop as he hovered over those around him. His jet black hair, still untouched by grey at the age of forty-one, was swept back unfashionably low to his collar and was matched in colour by the dark stubble on his cheeks; he was days away from his weekly shave. A long face and big, hooked nose were relieved by full, sensual lips and deep-set eyes beneath heavy brows.

  'What happens next, sir?' asked the teacher anxiously.

  He wanted this thing off his premises as soon as possible, concerned that he would be blamed by his patron for bringing the college into disrepute.

  The coroner rasped his fingers over the bristles on his chin, a mannerism that seemed to stimulate his thought processes. 'Cadavers are usually taken up to the castle to await burial, but as we have no idea who this fellow is, I'll hold an inquest here. That old forge is as good a place as any to keep him out of the rain or snow.'

  James Anglicus was aghast. 'That's not possible, my students will be back from their devotions at the cathedral in an hour,' he blubbered. 'Their instruction cannot be disturbed for some ancient corpse.'

  De Wolfe glowered. 'Administering the king's peace is more important than gabbling Latin at a bunch of youths,' he snapped. 'If necessary, I will order the whole house to be cleared while we search it.'

  The pedagogue stepped back a pace, conscious of the angry glint in the coroner's dark eyes, but managed to stammer a last feeble protest. 'My patron will be most disturbed to hear of this. The school is in its formative days and most vulnerable to adverse gossip.'

  It was clear from de Wolfe's expression that this plea made little impression on him, but grudgingly he followed it up. 'What exactly is this place? And who is this sensitive patron of yours?' He knew that in recent years, seats of learning had been set up in a number of towns to offer a higher level of education than those provided by the cathedral schools, which were mainly concerned with teaching youngsters to read and write and with training older boys for the priesthood.

  'I was appointed to lead this establishment three months ago, Crowner,' began James importantly. 'It is the most recent of the four schools in this road, chosen for its proximity to Priest Street, where so many of the cathedral clerics lodge. Most of our pupils are clerks in holy orders at various levels, the majority of them quite young men.'

  De Wolfe nodded impatiently. 'And who is this patron of whom you speak? Does he own the school and run it like any other business?'

  The magister was indignant. 'Profit is of little importance, sir. Naturally, each student pays fees, but the prime motive is the education of young minds. Our patron has expended much money and effort in setting up this temple of learning. Any breath of scandal might harm his ambition to attract more students.'

  'But who is this paragon of virtue?' demanded John, weary of the teacher's long-windedness.

  James Anglicus stared at him in some surprise. 'I would have thought you would be well aware of that, sir. It is your own brother-in-law.'

  De Wolfe never gaped, but at this news, his jaw came close to sagging. 'Richard de Revelle!' he exclaimed incredulously. 'You're jesting with me, surely.'

  'Indeed I am not,' exclaimed James indignantly. 'Sir Richard is a man of high academic ambition - he most earnestly seeks to establish Exeter as a seat of learning.'

  And as a seat of profit for himself, thought de Wolfe cynically, though grudgingly he had to acknowledge that his brother-in-law was well-educated. In fact, Richard never fai
led to rub it in to John that while the latter was illiterate, Richard himself had attended the cathedral school in Wells, his parents having originally wished him to enter the Church. John shrugged and turned back to the body on the ground.

  'It makes no difference to whom the place belongs, magister. There was still a corpse found on the premises and I have to deal with it in the usual way.'

  A few flurries of snow were twisting in the cold breeze: both living and dead needed to find some shelter. John gestured to Gwyn and with little effort, the Cornishman picked up the flimsy bundle and carried it back through the wide doorway of the forge, kicking aside some tools and boxes to make space for it on the cluttered floor. John and the builder followed him inside, and Thomas and James Anglicus tagged along more reluctantly, together with a fussy, pompous fellow who the magister had earlier introduced as Henry Wotri, his servant and general factotum in the school.