Gwyn gave an explosive snort of derision. ‘Of course he’s bloody dead! Half his lifeblood is on the timbers here and then his head was sunk under this brown shit that passes for London river water!’
De Wolfe turned to leave, telling the guard to get someone with a bucket to swill away the blood from the planks of the jetty.
‘We must find someone who can tell us who the dead man was,’ he growled. ‘He might have a family to mourn him.’
Though the victim was apparently in holy orders, most of these were in the lower grades and were not necessarily celibate like ordained priests. They were all, however, able to claim the protection of the Church through its ‘benefit of clergy’ when it came to a conflict with the secular powers.
Thomas pattered along behind the two bigger men as they left the landing stage, the old phthisis of the hip that had afflicted him as a child giving him a slight limp. ‘How will you discover who he might be, Crowner?’ he asked. ‘This place must have a couple of hundred people living and working in it.’
‘Ask the damned Steward, I suppose, if those clerks reckoned he was one of his staff,’ John replied abruptly.
They went back into the palace through the main entrance behind the Great Hall, the two helmeted sentries saluting de Wolfe as he marched towards the doorward’s chamber just inside. Here a fat clerk sat behind a table, talking to a sergeant of the guard. This was a tall man with three golden lions passant guardant, the royal arms of Richard Coeur de Lion embroidered across the chest of his long grey tunic. The soldier recognised John — in fact, he remembered him from Palestine where Black John’s prowess in the Crusade was almost legendary. As soon as the coroner had explained the problem, the sergeant insisted on personally conducting de Wolfe to the Steward’s domain and set off ahead of the trio into the bowels of the palace, which to them was uncharted territory.
After a number of twists and turns, all on the ground floor, they came to a wide passageway, on one side of which were kitchens, full of smoke, steam, raucous voices and the clatter of pots. Opposite were storerooms, with men trundling baskets, sacks and barrels from a wide door leading to a carter’s yard at the rear.
‘One of the Steward’s top men lives in here, Sir John,’ declared the sergeant, going to a doorless arch between two of the stores. He waved de Wolfe inside, then excused himself and strode away. John saw a cluttered room, with two desks occupied by young clerks wrestling with lists on parchment and piles of notched wooden tallies. Between them, on a slightly raised platform, was a sloped writing desk like a lectern. Behind this stood a thin, austere-looking man of late middle age, dressed in an expensive but sombre tunic that reached down to his ankles. Unlike John’s collar-length black hair, the man’s greying thatch was shaved up to a horizontal line around his head, in the typical Norman fashion. He stared haughtily at the visitor and enquired as to his business.
‘I am Sir John de Wolfe, the king’s coroner,’ snapped John, who had taken an instant dislike to this man. ‘And who might you be, sir?’
The official’s manner softened immediately — everyone in Westminster had heard of the appointment of the new Coroner of the Verge — a man high in the favour of both the Chief Justiciar and of King Richard himself.
‘I am Hugo de Molis, the king’s Chief Purveyor in England,’ he said with pride. ‘When the court is here at Westminster, then I offer the Steward my help in provisioning the palace.’
This sounded to John like a roundabout way of saying that he was the assistant steward, but even so, this was a responsible task. The Steward was one of the important officers of the court and always a nobleman, so this Hugo must be at least a manor-lord. His declared appointment as Chief Purveyor would make him one of the most disliked men in England, for the purveyors were those officials who went ahead of the court when it progressed around the countryside. Their task was to ensure that food and lodging were available each night for the hundreds of men, women and animals that trundled along with the monarch and his nobles. Except where they stayed at the king’s own manors, the purveyors ruthlessly confiscated beds, food, fodder and everything else needed for the court’s sustenance. They were constantly accused of failing to pay the market price for what they took — or not paying at all. A plague of locusts could not have been more efficient in laying waste the countryside and many folk on hearing of the approach of the court, fled into the woods with as many of their possessions as they could carry. John explained what had happened during the last half-hour.
‘I am the court’s coroner, charged with dealing with all fatal and serious assaults within the Verge. It seems virtually certain that this man has met a violent death and I need to know who he was, so that I can begin to deal with the matter.’
He added that two palace clerks seemed convinced that the victim was a member of the Steward’s entourage, probably working in the guest chambers.
Hugo de Molis gripped the sides of his lectern and stared at the coroner. ‘A man in minor orders working there?’ he muttered. ‘That can only be Basil of Reigate, one of my assistants!’
‘We have no body to show you yet,’ said de Wolfe gravely. ‘But first I must be sure that this Basil is not alive and well. Can you see if he is at his usual post?’
‘I know that he is not!’ retorted the purveyor. ‘For I myself sent him this very morning across the river to pay for vegetables and to place more orders with the farms in Kennington.’
‘It seems he was attacked as he left a boat returning to this shore, which would tally with what you say,’ replied de Wolfe.
‘Was he robbed?’
‘As we have no body and thus no purse, we cannot tell,’ answered John irritably. ‘Would he have been carrying much money in the course of his duties?’
Hugo de Molis shook his head. ‘If he was attacked on his way back here, then he would have already paid off the farmers. Though perhaps a robber might not be aware of that.’
The coroner considered this for a moment — violent robbery was a common crime and seemed the most likely explanation.
‘Tell me about this man, Basil of Reigate. It may be that I will have to identify his body if and when it is recovered downriver. And you may be required to confirm it.’
De Molis’s lean, humourless face showed some distaste at the prospect. ‘I am a very busy man, coroner,’ he said dismissively. ‘He was but a minor official, employed to serve the guest apartments on the upper floor.’
‘In what way did he serve them?’ persisted de Wolfe.
‘His duty was to make sure that everything necessary for the accommodation and sustenance of palace guests was available to the chamberlain’s men. They have their own cooks up there, so food and drink has to be supplied constantly. He was under my orders as to what was requisitioned from the main storerooms down here.’
This was of little interest to de Wolfe, who had a slaying and a vanished murderer to deal with. Further questions revealed that Basil had no family in Westminster and lived in the clerk’s dormitory in the palace. The Chief Purveyor seemed more concerned at finding a replacement for the dead man than in regretting his death, but he agreed to report the matter to the Keeper of the Palace, Nicholas de Levelondes, who was ultimately in charge of the staff who saw to the running of the establishment. He also grudgingly agreed to send one of his young clerks up to the guest chambers to make certain that Basil of Reigate was not sitting there alive and well.
‘What do we do now?’ asked Gwyn, as they began retracing their steps through the warren that was the ground floor.
‘Wait until we hear of a body being washed up on the mud somewhere,’ muttered John somewhat heartlessly. ‘Thomas was right, without a corpse I have no jurisdiction.’