‘You are in charge of this place?’ asked John, lifting a finger to point around the archives.
‘“In charge” is, perhaps, putting it too strongly. But for eight years the responsibility of caring for the books and parchments seems to have devolved upon me, for want of anyone else to do it.’
The Archdeacon broke in. ‘Brother Jordan is too modest – he is looked on by the Bishop and the rest of us as the cathedral archivist. He has a thankless task – but, then, we need no thanks on this side of the grave.’
‘Have you any notion as to what he was working on that might have wrought in him this change?’
De Brent lifted a hand to smooth the non-existent hair on his shiny red pate. ‘I can only assume that he found something of historical interest in the old rolls he was studying. He had written a few tracts on old churches from Saxon times, so I suspect he had made some new discovery.’
Again de Wolfe looked around the cluttered room. ‘Have you no idea what he was working on, to become so elated?’
De Brent glanced at Roger de Limesi, but the haggard canon regarded him blankly, although he said, ‘We could look through his parchments, I suppose. He always sat at that desk.’ He indicated one in the far corner, piled with vellum rolls and loose sheets.
‘That will take us a day or two,’ observed the rubicund de Brent. ‘His main interest was the early foundation of Norman parishes and how they were taken over from the previous Saxon incumbents.’ He looked around rather warily, then relaxed when he had confirmed that no Saxons were present.
The coroner scowled at the lack of progress he was making. Then, deferentially, Thomas spoke up. ‘I could examine all the documents to see if they hold any clue to this matter – or help the canons to do so,’ he added hastily, afraid that in his enthusiasm he might have spoken out of turn.
Before they could either approve or deny his offer, the Precentor spoke for the first time. Thomas de Boterellis had a round face, with an unhealthy waxy sheen, in which were set small, cold eyes. ‘I have something to add, though it may not be very helpful. I refrained from speaking before as the matter concerns the confessional – but as poor de Hane is dead I suppose no harm can be done.’
Five pairs of eyes swivelled towards where he sat astride his stool as if on a horse, his chasuble flowing down to the floor on each side.
‘Carefully now, brother, if it is a sensitive issue of religious faith,’ warned the Archdeacon.
The other canon shook his head. ‘It is not that – and may have some slight bearing on this affair. Some weeks ago, I cannot recall exactly when, Robert de Hane came to me after a Chapter meeting, as I am – I was – his confessor.’
John de Alencon broke in to explain to the coroner. ‘Each of us – even the Bishop himself – is allotted a fellow priest to take his confessions. Often we pair up to take each other’s sins and give absolution.’
De Wolfe thought this a convenient system and was glad that the heretical Gwyn was not there to give one of his scornful grunts at these ecclesiastical tactics.
The Precentor continued with his story. ‘We went as usual to kneel before the altar of St Richard and St Radegund at the west end of the cathedral. He confessed a few minor sins, which need not concern us, but then he unburdened himself of a more specific matter.’
‘Have a care, Thomas,’ cautioned the Archdeacon again, concerned about the inviolacy of the confessional.
Locked in his obsessional habit, the coroner’s clerk crossed himself jerkily in anticipation of some dread revelation, but no heinous sin of the flesh was forthcoming.
‘De Hane said that he had been guilty of greed and covetousness, but that he had seen the error of his ways in time so that his actions now would be for the glorification of God through his Church in Exeter.’ De Boterellis stopped abruptly. ‘That is all that was relevant but, coming from someone with such a lack of avarice as de Hane, greed and covetousness seemed rather incongruous.’
There was silence for a moment. ‘And he was never more specific about what he meant?’ asked de Wolfe.
‘No, he refused to elaborate, saying that all would be made clear in the fullness of time. But people do say odd things under the emotion of the confessional.’
The Archdeacon had been staring at the cobwebbed roof-beams with an air of abstraction, but now brought down his bright grey eyes to fix them upon the coroner. ‘I wonder if another small fact fits into this puzzle,’ he mused.
The others waited expectantly.
‘A week ago, I was discussing our finances with the Treasurer, John of Exeter, partly to forecast our income in the new year that is about to begin. Among many other matters, he said that he had had a rather vague promise of a substantial sum from one of our canons. I didn’t press the matter to ask from whom it had come, as it is not uncommon for the more affluent of our brothers to make such donations – but it may tie in with de Hane’s promise to his confessor.’
Privately, the coroner felt all this talk of canonical riches too vague to be of any use, but so far it was all he had by way of background on the dead man. ‘So do you think that Robert de Hane had some hidden wealth, in spite of his outwardly modest style of living, and that he was killed in furtherance of its theft?’ he suggested.
De Boterellis shook his pudgy face. ‘When he confessed to me in such an indefinite way, the matter seemed in the future, that he was regretful for aspiring to keep what was going to come to him, rather than what he already possessed.’
There was another thoughtful silence among the circle of men perched on their high stools, until Jordan de Brent’s deep voice broke it. ‘One trivial matter,’ said the archivist. ‘Our brother Robert rarely left the cathedral Close. He was either at his devotions in the cathedral, or home, or here in the library. Yet in the past three weeks he vanished several times for a day on the back of a pony and returned with mud-spattered feet at dusk.’
‘And you say that was unusual?’ asked de Wolfe, who spent half his life on the back of a horse.
‘Very much so – he was a most sedentary person. I’ve no idea where he went, he merely told me that he would not be here in the library on those few days. His vicar-choral and secondary must have stood in for him at services. They or his manservants might know where he went.’
This added scrap of information seemed to exhaust the meagre pool of knowledge about the late Canon de Hane, and after de Wolfe had arranged with Jordan de Brent for Thomas to sift through de Hane’s manuscripts the hungry priests dispersed to their midday meals. The coroner and his clerk walked across to the house where the death had taken place. In it, there was an air of sadness that ill-befitted the festival of Christ’s birth. The body still lay on the bed as the coroner had yet to hold the inquest. Afterwards it would be removed to lie in reverence before the high altar in the cathedral.
Gwyn was in the kitchen, a lean-to built against the back of the house, projecting into the narrow garden. Most of the canons’ houses, originally wooden, had been refashioned in stone. They were long, narrow dwellings, one room wide with a main hall in front, then several small bedrooms, and various nooks and crannies for lodging guests and accommodating the resident secondary priest. The few male servants slept either in passages or in the shacks in the garden, which also had a stable, as well as the wash-house and the privy where the body had been found.
With the coroner’s officer were two servants of the deceased canon, as well as a young secondary and a vicar who deputised for de Hane at many of the daily services. They all looked uneasily at the swarthy coroner as he swept into the kitchen.
Gwyn eased his huge frame off the corner of the table where he had been sitting. ‘No one seems to have any light to shed on this affair, Crowner,’ he growled, scratching his crotch vigorously, a habit he had akin to Thomas’s tic.