Figure of Hate Read online

  'But did you learn anything of use?' demanded de Wolfe, beginning to feel that his officer's gift for endlessly spinning out a story was rubbing off on his clerk.

  'Some useful gossip, I think..He confirmed that the family is at loggerheads most of the time, especially since William was killed. He seems to have been a very strong character and kept the rest firmly in their places.

  Without him, they are all fighting like cats' in a barn.'

  'His widow seems a tough old bird as well,' observed Gwyn.

  John felt this was a poor description of a handsome woman in her prime, but he agreed that she had a formidable personality.

  Thomas tapped the side of his long, thin nose. 'It seems she has a suspicion that her husband's death was not altogether accidental,' said the clerk, in a dramatic whisper.

  'How could it not be?' objected Nesta. 'I recall the chatter about it in here at the time. He fell from his horse in full view of hundreds of people.'

  'I hope that the priest wasn't breaking the confessional when he told me...' Thomas stopped to cross himself. 'But he claimed that Avelina has several times accused Hugo of somehow contriving the death, so that he could inherit the manor.'

  'That seems nothing but a widow's bitterness to me,' said Nesta stubbornly. 'First, how could he do it - and why was it not detected by those at the tourney who went to William's aid? Also, it was this Odo, the eldest son, who was to be the heir, not Hugo.'

  'Did you discover any more details concerning why Odo lost the inheritance?' demanded de Wolfe.

  'It was solely on the grounds that he has this falling sickness. Patrick said that he has had this affliction since he was a youth. It isn't getting any worse, but Hugo seized upon it as an excuse to have him disinherited.'

  'What happens in this condition?' asked Nesta. 'Does it occur often?'

  Thomas lifted his humped shoulder in a shrug, 'I didn't go into that, but the priest said it can come on at any time, especially if Odo gets excited or harassed. Usually he just falls senseless to the ground, but sometimes he has a slight fit, with spasms of his limbs.'

  'Did any other scandal drip from this fat Irishman's lips?' asked Gwyn sarcastically.

  'Only about Hugo's wife - or rather widow now.'

  'Beatrice? She was certainly making cow's eyes at young Joel,' grunted John.

  Nesta's interest was raised another notch, as any romance intrigued her greatly. 'Was she unfaithful to her husband with his brother?' she asked eagerly.

  Again the clerk twitched his shoulders.

  'Father Patrick didn't say so in as many words, but he was the confessor to the whole family and must have known the truth, which he conveyed with nudges and winks. She had no love for her husband, that was obvious.'

  'It must have been shaming for her, to see him so brazenly seducing the village girls,' pouted Nesta, championing a woman she had never seen.

  'Enough to stick a knife between his ribs seven times?' queried Gwyn.

  'A woman scorned is as dangerous as a squadron of mounted knights!' exclaimed John, feelingly though he did not explain how he came to know such a thing.

  'She couldn't have done it,' objected Thomas. 'She went to bed while Hugo was still alive and her maid slept outside her door all night.'

  'Pah! A maid is ever loyal to her mistress, especially if some silver changes hands,' said de Wolfe. 'That means nothing, but I don't see how she could pass back through the hall to get outside.'

  'No need for that, Crowner,' said Gwyn. 'Yesterday I had a good scout around the buildings and found a little postern door at the back that the servants use to bring food in from the kitchens. It not only opens into the hall behind those screens, but also leads to a passage where there is another stairway in the thickness of the wall, leading up to the chambers above.'

  'So any of the family could have gone outside without those left in the hall seeing them,' muttered John, half to himself. He turned back to his clerk. 'Did you gather if this affair between Joel and Beatrice is at all serious, or just a young stallion wanting to ride a pretty mare?'

  'I just don't know that, master. There was a limit to what I could squeeze out of the priest, half drunk though he was.'

  The coroner finished his ale and Nesta waved at one of the maids to fetch a large jug across. When their pots were refilled, he turned to Gwyn.

  'What about you? Did you get any tongues to wag in that dismal tavern?'

  The big Cornishman pulled at the ends of his moustache before replying.

  'A surly lot, but eventually we got talking, with the help of those pennies you gave me to lubricate their tongues. Seems the whole damned village hated the Peverels, especially Hugo. Not many tears shed at his passing, that's for sure.'

  'What's the problem, then? They can't all have daughters for him to seduce.'

  'He was a harsh man in every way, so it seems. His father was a tough fellow, but they preferred him to his son.' Gwyn dipped his face back into his ale-jar to gain strength for his narrative. 'He drove the bondsmen too hard and was unreasonable when there was any problem. Hugo imposed crushing penalties at his manor court and he was over-fond of hanging people, which caused much discontent.'

  'There are many manors where that applies,' observed John. 'Were there any who had a special grudge against him, enough to want him dead?' Gwyn nodded, his tangled red curls bobbing around his large head.

  'The reeve for one, according to the village harnessmaker. It seems that his daughter was married a month ago and Hugo insisted on spending the first part of the wedding night with her, claiming droit de seigneur!'

  An outraged Nesta clucked her tongue and Thomas almost hopped up and down on his stool in indignation.

  'Droit de seigneur!' he squeaked. 'There's no such thing in law, it's just an immoral folk tale cynically conjured up by unscrupulous barons and manor-lords!' John knew that, although the feudal system allowed a lord to impose the 'merchet', a monetary charge, on any of his subjects for allowing a daughter to be wedded, the alleged right to sleep with the bride on the first night had no legal justification. Yet there was no doubt that some lords indulged in it, because there was no one to challenge them in the tyrannical system of closed manorial communities.

  'Not only did the reeve, this Warin Fishacre, swear that he would avenge his daughter's degradation,' continued Gwyn, 'but the bridegroom, who almost abandoned the marriage after Hugo stole his bride's virginity, put it about the village that he would also get even with his master.'

  Thomas was still outraged at the idea that droit de seigneur continued to be thought of by some as a legitimate perquisite of the gentry.

  'It is a total fiction, invented by some whose purpose it suits,' he squawked indignantly. 'They claim it to be an ancient tradition, under its other name, the jus prima noctis, the "right of the first night".'

  Gwyn reached out and ruffled the lank hair of the little clerk.

  'Calm down, dwarf! It just means that Sampfbrd is conveniently living in the past.'

  'So we have at least another two candidates for wishing the death of this figure of hate,' ruminated the coroner. 'Did you dig up any other scandal in that miserable alehouse, Gwyn?'

  'It was hard to find anyone who didn't hate the bastard,' growled the Gornishman. 'This gossipy harness-maker told me that another bondsman who was rubbing his hands in delight that day was the village thatcher. It seems that soon after Hugo came into the lordship, he had the thatcher's youngest son hanged for poaching an injured stag that he came across in the forest when he was cutting thatching pegs. The father and his two other sons were said to be waiting for a chance to settle that score with Hugo Peverel, though it may have been all bluster.'

  Nesta leaned across and took a mouthful of ale from John's mug.

  'You seem to have a wide choice of suspects for your murder, Sir Crowner. Is there anyone in Sampford Peverel who didn't wish to see this hateful fellow dead?' John gave her a squeeze. 'There's another, not resident in that unhappy manor, who de
clared in my presence that he would kill Hugo when he next met him!'

  Nesta's big eyes widened at this. 'And who is that?'

  'Reginald de Charterai, the knight who defeated Hugo fairly at the tournament on Bull Mead last week.

  I told you all about that, remember?'

  'Yes, but you didn't say the Frenchman threatened to slay him.'

  'Well, he did, after that drunken confrontation in the Guildhall, though at the time I thought it was empty words spoken in anger. But what's even more interesting, he's been staying in Tiverton these past few days, within a few miles of Sampford Peverel.' The other three stared at him in surprise - this was the first they had heard of this twist.

  'What the hell's he doing there?' demanded Gwyn.

  'It seems he's paying court to Avelina, the handsome widow - the elder of the two handsome Peverel widows now,' he added whimsically. 'The brothers almost had apoplexy when she told them that she had invited Reginald to visit her at the manor today.'

  'I don't see that she could ever be a suspect in this,' said Nesta. 'Whatever happens to her stepsons, she can never retrieve her dead husband's estate for herself.'

  'But if she suspected Hugo had a hand in her husband's demise,' squeaked Thomas, 'and her new lover de Charterai had reasons for hating him sufficient to threaten "to kill him, then either one or the other - or both - might have encompassed his death for revenge.'

  De Wolfe gave one of his throaty rumbles, like an old lion. It could mean anything but often was a signal that he doubted some assertion.

  'I can't see an honourable knight like de Charterai repeatedly stabbing a former jousting opponent in the back - though even chivalrous men will do terrible things when goaded by a fair lady!' He gave Nesta a pinch on her bottom that made her jump.

  'So what's to be done next, Crowner?' asked the practical Gwyn.

  'Back to Sampford early tomorrow to hold this inquest and see Hugo laid in the ground. I doubt we'll learn anything new, unless some of the villagers decide to voice their grievances.'

  'Little chance of that - they still have to live under their new lord after we've left,' grunted his officer.

  'Who's it going to be? I wonder.'

  John rasped his fingers over his stubble. 'It sounded to me as if Odo was going to reopen his fight to inherit, though Ralph seemed confident that the justices would find for him against Odo, just as they did for Hugo.'

  Will that take a long time to settle?' asked Nesta.

  'They were quick enough last time. I think they took the case straight to Winchester and got some members of the curia to deal with the matter. It doesn't do for a large manor like Sampford to be left in limbo for long.'

  'God knows when the justices will come to Exeter next,' said Gwyn. 'If the Peverels want another quick decision, they had better go chasing the Chief Justiciar or the Chancellor again.'

  John stretched his long legs out under the table, feeling the warmth of Brutus's brown fur against his calves.

  'That's their problem, I'm glad to say. Though if I find that it was one of the brothers who dispatched Hugo to get his inheritance, then there'll be yet another dispute over who gets that unhappy manor.'

  The next morning was unexpectedly fine and the high road leading north-east out of the city was in as good a state as it ever would be, the mud dried yet not powdered into dust. Thomas and the coroner left by the East Gate as soon it was opened at dawn and met Gwyn at St Sidwells, the nearby village where he lived.

  A couple of hours later they were trotting down the road into Sampford, this time from the Tiverton direction, and soon passed Agnes's mean cottage, which marked the start of the village. Apart from a few women and children around the dwellings and some old men tending their tofts and animals; there seemed few people about, though in the distance an ox team was ploughing one of the strip fields.

  'I trust that bailiff has assembled a jury as I ordered,' muttered John. 'But these damned brothers seem to delight in being obstructive.'

  'You said you'll hold the inquest in that barn they use for a manor court?' asked Gwyn.

  'It seemed the best place, especially if there was to be rain. Knowing them, they'll not yet have brought the corpse from the church, so let's ride there first to see what's going on.'

  They trotted along the track, which followed the ridge past the manor house and the green to the church at the far end. Outside the gate, they dismounted and Thomas held the horses while Gwyn and his master went into the churchyard. Halfway down the path to the porch Gwyn stopped and pointed to a spot a few yards to one side.

  'That wasn't there on Monday. Have they had another death already?'

  De Wolfe looked across and saw a mound of fresh red earth. His face darkened as suspicion flowed into his mind like a spring tide.

  'The bastards wouldn't dare!' he hissed and, lengthening his stride, he hurried into the little church. Inside the door he stopped and looked down towards the altar. There was nothing there - no bier, no body.

  'Perhaps they've taken it to the barn ready for the inquest,' growled Gwyn, peering over John's shoulder.

  'I very much hope so, or there'll be big trouble!' rasped the coroner, but his hopes were short lived. The rotund figure of the priest emerged from the tiny sacristy, an anxious expression on his podgy features.

  'Where's the corpse?' roared John, careless of the hallowed surroundings.

  Father Patrick shuffled forward in his faded cassock, his hands held out in supplication.

  'I told them it shouldn't be done, after what you ordered, Crowner,' he babbled in his thick Irish brogue. 'But they insisted and I have no power to resist my lords, sir. My very living is within their gift.' De Wolfe advanced until he was towering over the unfortunate priest.

  'You mean he's already buried? That grave outside?' he bellowed.

  The vicar nodded, cowering back from this irate knight, who looked as if he might unsheathe his sword, church or no church.

  'Yesterday, Crowner. You see, his corpse was beginning to turn colour and my masters, especially Sir Ralph and Sir Joel, said it wasn't seemly.'

  'Seemly! The law is the law, whether it's seemly or not!' thundered John.

  Father Patrick nodded vigorously. 'Of course, Crowner! But then our neighbour, Sir Richard de Revelle, came across and recommended that we have a quick burial. As he was the sheriff until recently, we all assumed he knew that the law allowed it under those circumstances.'

  De Wolfe looked at Gwyn and exhaled noisily.

  'Bloody de Revelle! I might have known it.' Ignoring the disconsolate priest, he turned on his heel, strode out of the church and, with an angry glance at the pile of fresh soil, went to his horse and cantered back towards the manor house, Gwyn and Thomas following behind. On striding into the hall, he found the three brothers sitting around a table with Richard de Revelle, all drinking ale and picking from a platter of savoury pastries. Standing near by were the steward, the bailiff and the reeve, looking decidedly anxious as they saw the King's coroner bursting in like an avenging angel - or perhaps devil was nearer the mark. He marched up to the table and stood aggressively with his legs apart and his fists bunched at his waist.

  'Right, which of you ordered the corpse to be buried?' he snapped, without any niceties of greeting.

  'Good morning, brother-in-law!' said de Revelle, with sarcastic false civility.

  'You keep out of this, de Revelle. I'll come back to you in a moment.' He glared at the three Peverels until one of them stood up. It was Ralph, and it seemed that on this occasion Odo was content to let his brother assume seniority.

  'It was a family decision, Sir John. We were of the opinion that your demand to leave our relative unburied for so long was utterly unreasonable.'

  'You will abide by the law, sir. I expressly forbade you to dispose of the cadaver until today.'

  Ralph, though more than a decade younger than John, tried to look as if he were a master chiding a servant.

  'Your opinion was considere
d and rejected. The weather has become unseasonably warm and it was an insult to our brother's memory to allow some petty rule to worsen the anguish already suffered by this family.' Odo thought better of his passive role and joined the argument.

  'You had already examined the body yourself, Sir John - so what can be gained by leaving it above ground for two more days?'

  'Because the law demands that it be before the jury at the inquest!' retorted de Wolfe. 'They have to see the corpse and confirm the wounds and cause of death with their own eyes, otherwise the proceedings are invalid.'

  'Damned nonsense,' drawled the former sheriff. 'We did without coroners until last year. This country is becoming plagued by bureaucracy since Hubert Walter started playing at being king.'

  'Have a care, de Revelle!' responded John in a dangerously restrained voice. 'What you say comes near sedition, as the Chief Justiciar was expressly appointed by King Richard to protect his interests in England. Though we all know that sailing near the political wind is something with which you are all too familiar!' The coroner knew that, whatever their other faults, there was no suspicion that the Peverels were anything but faithful to the Crown, and that they were not tainted by any support for the Count of Mortain. He had added this pointed comment deliberately, to warn the brothers against becoming too close to such an untrustworthy figure as Richard de Revelle.

  'That body must come up again - and right away!' he snapped, returning to the main issue.

  Everyone in the hall stared at him - even the serving men and maids lurking around the screens at the back were hanging on every word.

  'You mean ... desecrate our brother even further? Never, sir, this is something we will not countenance!' Ralph's voice was almost a shriek.

  There was a babble of protest from the others, even the steward and the bailiff joining in, though Gwyn noticed that the reeve, Warin Fishacre, was silent. John stood stolidly until the noise settled, then he folded his arms and addressed them in a voice that invited no contradiction.