The Manor of Death Page 30
She pulled away and sat looking down at her hands folded in her lap. Then she looked up into his eyes. 'Go to your battle tomorrow, John, and may God preserve you. When you come back, I will give you my answer.'
Sir John de Wolfe went to battle soon after dawn reddened the eastern sky. The jingling of harness, the scraping of impatient hooves and the snorting of horses marked the second armed contingent that week to assemble in the inner courtyard. The same men-at-arms who had sailed on the St Radegund were there, plus a few reinforcements. The sheriff felt obliged to accompany them and wore an old and slightly rusted hauberk that had not seen service for a decade, since he had given up campaigning.
John's similar long coat of mail, slit at the back and front for riding, was in better condition, as the previous evening Gwyn had insisted on giving it a rub-down with sand and wet rags. Ralph Morin, who had plenty of manual labour in Rougemont for such tasks, had armour whose links glittered in the morning light. The mounted soldiers, as well as Gwyn, wore thick jerkins of boiled leather, with metal plates on the shoulders - and all wore the usual basin-shaped helmets. The only one with nothing but a faded black robe was Thomas, who rode uneasily in the centre of the troop. He had protested when John ordered him to join the expedition, but the coroner was adamant that he might need someone to write down any confessions that might be made - and promised the very nervous priest that he would be kept well out of any violence until all conflict had finished.
They left at a steady trot in good weather, and even Thomas on his borrowed rounsey managed to keep up with them. They stopped at Sidford to rest the horses and eat their rations, but by noon they had covered the twenty miles to the Axe valley. The last stretch of the journey was down from the bridge over the river at Boshill Cross, upstream of the inland end of the estuary. The troop went more cautiously now, riding in pairs with the sheriff and constable at the head. A couple of furlongs from Axmouth, they kept their promise to Thomas and left him hidden behind a hazel thicket at the side of the track, where he squatted uneasily with his writing bag of parchments, pens and ink beside him. They continued down the road, the wooded slopes of Hawkesdown Hill rising steeply to their left, until the few outer cottages and then the north wall of the village came in sight. The gate was firmly closed, and Henry de Furnellis raised his gloved hand to bring them to a halt a hundred paces away.
'Never seen that shut before,' growled Ralph Morin. 'Is it for our benefit, I wonder?'
'It's hardly Dover Castle!' said the sheriff cynically. 'So what's the point?'
The wall seemed more suited for keeping out livestock than resisting a siege, for it was a dry-stone wall little more than the height of a man, though it ran from the edge of the high ground inland to the edge of the estuary, where piles driven into the mud extended a fence a little way out into the water. The gate was of stout oak, about the same height as the wall and wide enough for a cart to pass through.
'Do we shout, knock or smash it open?' asked Morin. 'They obviously knew we were coming - probably had spies posted on the road.'
'I'll go and look,' volunteered Gwyn, slipping from his saddle.
'Have a care - remember those arrows last week,' warned de Wolfe as his officer ambled towards the gate. The expedition watched as the big Cornishman picked up a rock from the side of the road and used it to pound on the gate. 'God blast you, open this bloody door!' he yelled in a voice that could probably be heard over in Seaton.
There was no response, even after Gwyn had hammered on the unyielding panels a few more times.
Impatiently, the constable nudged his horse's belly to walk it towards the gate, where from his elevated position he could see over the top. The main street stretched before him, houses on either side, with the church and the gate to the quayside in the distance.
'Half the damned village is standing in the road!' he shouted over his shoulder. Turning back, he bellowed over the gate at the few dozen men and a handful of women who were staring at the head that had appeared above the wall.
'The sheriff is here and he commands you in the name of the king to open this gate!'
There was some shuffling and gesturing amongst the throng, who stood some distance away, outside the house of the bailiff. A few defiant shouts were thrown at him, but no one approached to unbar the gate.
'Are they armed?' called de Wolfe, starting to move his own horse up to the barrier.
'A few sticks and cudgels, but nothing more,' said Ralph, wheeling his horse away and coming back to meet the others, who were now moving closer to the gate.
'I'll soon get us in there!' growled Gwyn, spitting on his hands. Reaching up, he seized the top of the gate and with a mighty heave pulled himself up until he could tilt his belly across the top. Though he was a big, heavy man, he had such strength in his arms that he could lift his bulk sufficiently to straddle the top and pull his legs over, to drop to the ground on the other side. There was an outburst of angry shouts from the crowd down the road, but still no one approached.
Gwyn pushed up the long bar from its iron sockets on the back of the gate and threw it aside, then hauled the gate wide open. Led by the sheriff, the troop trotted through and advanced on the throng further down the track.
As they approached, some of them scattered, but others stood their ground and jeered truculently as the king's men bore down on them. John saw that Edward Northcote stood by the fence around his cottage, with Elias Palmer and John Capie by his side. Further away, the old priest, Henry of Cumba, leant on his stick alongside some of the less demonstrative of his parishioners.
'Why have you broken into our village, uninvited?' demanded the bailiff. 'This is Church land. You know well enough that it belongs to the Priory of Loders.'
'It is not Church land, as you call it,' snapped de Furnellis. 'It is a manor ceded to an alien house. Which is irrelevant, anyway, as in murder or treason the king's writ runs everywhere, apart from the temporary respite of sanctuary.'
Before Northcote could argue, the coroner broke in. 'Why did you bar the gate against us? A futile gesture, as you see, but it points towards your guilt before we even ask a single question!'
'Guilt about what?' demanded Northcote.
'Don't play the innocent with me, man,' snapped the sheriff. Henry was getting too old and intolerant to bandy words and came straight to the point. 'You know damned well that The Tiger and her crew were caught red-handed in an act of piracy. Martin Rof is in gaol and will be hanged - he should be hanged twice, once for being a pirate and again for strangling that lad Simon Makerel.'
'What has that to do with me?' shouted Northcote angrily. 'I know nothing of piracy. What Rof or anyone else is up to in secret is their affair, not mine.'
'Tell that to the king's justices when you are arraigned before them,' suggested de Wolfe. 'For I don't believe that anything can happen in Axmouth without your knowledge - and probably your permission.'
As they were speaking, the soldiers had spread out so that they were partly surrounding the villagers, many of whom had already slipped furtively away to their homes.
'You were warned about our coming, no doubt,' snapped the sheriff. 'And you were told of the rout of The Tiger, almost certainly by Henry Crik. Where is he?'
'How should I know? He is Sir Robert de Helion's man, not mine.'
'Right, then we'll do this the hard way,' said de Furnellis grimly. He muttered to the constable and Morin sent Sergeant Gabriel and most of the men-at-arms hurrying off to search every house. There was an outcry from some of the villagers, but they were pushed aside as a wholesale hunt went on in the two-score dwellings of the village, as well as in their storehouses and stables. While this was going on, the bailiff, the silent portreeve and the Customs man Capie were taken into Northcote's house and stood between two soldiers while they were questioned further. Stolidly, they denied all knowledge of any piracy or illegal disposal of pillaged goods, claiming that all the cargo that was landed from every vessel was properly accounted for.
At that moment there was a scuffle outside and Gabriel entered with two soldiers pushing a couple of men before him. 'We found these hiding in the washhouse behind the portreeve's house,' said the sergeant. The two fugitives were Henry Crik and Brother Absalom, both putting on a great show of indignation, which was cut short by the sheriff.
'Why did you hide yourselves away, eh? What have you got to hide?'
The lay brother from Loders angrily tried to shake off the hand of a trooper who was grasping his arm. 'We fled because we heard that soldiers were descending on the village,' he snarled. 'Knowing of the ways of crude fighting men, we feared for our life and limb!'
'I know nothing of what goes on here. I am a servant of a respectable merchant,' cried the agent.
'Crik, you are a liar and a thief - and possibly a murderer!' said de Wolfe. 'I accuse you of disposing of stolen goods obtained through piracy. I suspect you are one of the main plotters, along with these other men.'
The agent strenuously denied the accusations and defied the coroner to offer any proof.
'What about you, Brother Absalom?' cut in the sheriff. 'As someone who looks after the priory's interests, I fail to see how you could be unaware of what's been going on here.'
The cellarer's man looked sullenly at de Furnellis. 'I am in holy orders and I decline to answer any questions whatsoever. If you have questions, address them to the prior, for I'll say nothing at all, except to deny these scandalous accusations.'
The interrogation continued but was met with total denial by the four men.
John turned to John Capie, who had been skulking in a corner trying to look inconspicuous. 'You, what do you know about any of this?' he growled.
The excise man turned up his hands. 'I told you last time, Crowner, all I do is count what comes in and goes out of the ships' holds. Where it comes from and where it goes is beyond me. My job is just to make tallies and give them to the portreeve.'
The bailiff drew himself up haughtily, having recovered all his considerable confidence. 'Once again, you law officers have unjustifiably disrupted and insulted our village! If you have no further business here, leave us to get on with our labours.'
Henry de Furnellis gave a cynical laugh. 'Yes, we'll be going, when it suits us. And all of you will be going with us, back to the prison in the undercroft of Exeter Castle! If you persist in lying, then you will have to be persuaded. '
There was a hubbub of anguish and protest, especially from Absalom. 'You cannot touch me, I claim Benefit of Clergy. I can say the 'neck verse' to prove my status as a clerk! You have no jurisdiction over me!'
De Wolfe thought that he was probably right, but he decided to turn the screw a little tighter. 'Yes, in the fullness of time you can claim to be tried by your ecclesiastical courts under canon law - though as you belong to a foreign alien order and do not come under the rule of a bishop, even that claim might fail. But you cannot evade my questioning or my accusing you.'
'And if you don't like it, appeal to the Pope!' added de Furnellis mischievously. 'You might get a reply within a year or so!' He turned to leave the house, ordering Morin to place a guard upon the suspects until they were ready to leave for Exeter. Outside, Thomas de Peyne had just arrived, having satisfied himself that a pitched battle was not taking place in the village.
'Is there anything you require of me yet, Crowner?' he asked timidly.
'Unfortunately not, Thomas. These bastards have decided to keep their mouths clamped shut and may need some persuasion to open them.'
The clerk shuddered at the implications and crossed himself nervously. '
'Keep the men, searching until they have covered every inch,' ordered the sheriff. 'I think we had better look again in those warehouses on the quayside that you described to me, John.'
Demanding the keys from Capie, they set off towards the edge of the estuary beyond the church, where two cogs were visible against the bank.
'Had we better mount a guard on those, in case anyone tries to slip away by sea?' asked the constable.
Gwyn grinned and shook his head. 'No need. The tide is out - a vessel would need wheels to get away in the next eight hours!'
One cog was empty, having already discharged her cargo, and the other was half-loaded with wool, so no suspicion attached to either ship. In the warehouses, there was a collection of goods ranging from tuns of wine to bales of Flemish cloth, from cubes of fine Caen stone to baskets of tin ingots. Outside were stacks of trimmed limestone from the nearby quarries at Beer. But without a genuine manifest of what should be present, it was impossible to say whether or not it was all legal.
On the way back to the centre of the village, they met Sergeant Gabriel coming towards them. 'Found something odd in one of the barns, sheriff,' he reported, his grizzled face alight with satisfaction. 'Hidden behind a stack of straw that looked as if it had been piled there deliberately. '
They followed him into the eastern part of Axmouth, where part of the village was tucked into the neck of a small valley cutting up through the hillside. Amongst the crofts and huts were a few barns, in one of which two soldiers stood sentinel over a four-wheeled ox-cart. It had a canvas hood and stood almost totally concealed behind a mound of oat straw that reached nearly to the roof. The drawshaft lay empty on the ground, and there was no sign of the two beasts that would have pulled it.
'Who does this barn belong to?' demanded the sheriff.
Gabriel hurried outside and returned in a moment with an old man he found hiding behind the fence of the nearest house. Pulling him by the scruff of his woollen blouse, he dragged him before the sheriff and coroner.
'Is this place yours?' he barked. 'And what is this wagon doing here?'
The terrified villager immediately disowned both. 'The barn belongs to the manor, sir. Mostly hay, straw and turnips are stored here.'
'Do you store wagons here as well?' demanded the coroner, but the sarcasm was lost on the old fellow.
'It belongs to some of the carters who take the cargoes inland, sir. Nothing to do with me!'
'And where would these carters be now?' boomed Ralph Morin, jabbing his beard almost in the man's face.
'They usually lodge in the tavern, sir. There are a number of them. They come and go, as they are not Axmouth men.'
The constable ordered his sergeant to search the Harbour Inn and if they were not there to seek them in the village. Once out of earshot, Gabriel began muttering that he didn't know how to tell a carter from a wheelwright, but he set his men to find them by some means.
The wagon was empty apart from a single crossbow bolt lying on the floor behind the driving-board. Gwyn picked it up and showed it to de Wolfe, with a quizzical look on his face. John nodded his understanding, but neither could attach any real significance to the find. 'There are crossbows aplenty around the country, Gwyn. This may be nothing to do with the ones that were fired at us.'
When they went outside again, John noticed Thomas in deep conversation with Henry of Cumba, the old parish priest, but they did not approach him and, together with the sheriff and constable, he began walking back to the bailiff's house, annoyed and frustrated that they had been unable to get any confessions from their suspects.
'There seems nothing for it but to drag these bloody men back to Exeter and see if a few days of Stigand's hospitality might loosen their tongues,' observed de Furnellis gloomily.
'What about this blasted monk from Loders?' asked Ralph. 'There'll be hell to pay when his prior finds out we've dragged off one of his staff.'
'I don't give a damn about that,' replied Henry stubbornly. 'This is a task specifically ordered by the Chief Justiciar and with the consent of the king himself, more or less. I've weathered far worse than the anger of some Benedictine.'
> As they reached the main track, John became aware of his clerk padding behind him and making some patently false coughing sounds to attract his attention. 'What is it, Thomas? Have you a frog in your throat?'
The priest adopted a conspiratorial manner and came so close that John could see the habitual dewdrop on the tip of his sharp nose. His voice was little more than a whisper. 'Henry the priest has been talking to me, master. I think you should hear what he has to say.'
Henry of Cumba was standing behind Thomas, looking very worried and almost guilty.
'Does he want to confess to being a pirate, too?' demanded John.
'It may well be a confession, but not of the sort you mean, Crowner,' replied the clerk. 'He says he wishes to speak to you and the sheriff, but wants to do so in the sanctity of his own church.'
De Wolfe frowned at this play-acting. 'Can't he just come out with it here?'
Thomas shook his head. 'I think you should indulge him, sir. It might be important.'
The coroner stepped across to where the sheriff was talking to Ralph Morin and Gwyn and told him what his clerk had said. De Furnellis shrugged and agreed to humour the two priests, as there seemed nothing to lose by it.
The constable said that he would go with Gwyn and see if there was any sign of the missing carters. As the tavern was directly opposite the church, they all walked down the village street, leaving the indignant prisoners held in the bailiff's house guarded by half a dozen soldiers.
John, Henry and the two priests turned into the churchyard alongside a double-stone stile, which was used for resting coffins upon before burial. The church of St Michael was a fairly new structure, built about fifty years earlier. It was a substantial building with a nave and chancel, having a squat tower and a striking arched doorway carved in zigzag patterns. The subdued parish priest led the way into the cool nave, which was set with columns on either side. Here, Henry of Cumba spoke for the first time.
'We should all pray to the Almighty for mercy and forgiveness - especially me!' To suit his words, he dropped prone on the floor at the entrance to the chancel, arms spread out as in a crucifixion, and began muttering in Latin into the flagstoned step.