‘All here know the deceased for Sir William Fitzhamon but, for formality’s sake, I will have this confirmed by his son and heir. Robert Fitzhamon, is this the body of your father?’
Robert assented in a low voice and de Wolfe continued, ‘Equally, we can dispense with presentment of Englishry, as Fitzhamon’s Norman blood is known far and wide.’
At this point Henry de Nonant interrupted, in a tone of bored impatience, ‘Is there any need for this charade, Crowner? We are all aware that presentment was intended to discourage the assassination of our Norman forebears by treacherous natives. It is surely outdated now, but it can never have made sense in hunting accidents among Norman companions anyway.’
De Wolfe glared at him, the corners of his mouth downturned in his mournful face. ‘Your sense of history may be correct in that strife between Saxon and Norman has all but vanished – but assassination is still with us. And I have good reason to believe that this is what has happened to William Fitzhamon.’
He tried to explain it to Richard de Revelle that evening, but with little success, as there is no one as deaf as those who do not wish to listen. ‘It is a murder, carefully designed to look like an accident.’
The sheriff, leaning back in his chair behind the document-strewn table, was derisive. ‘John, you see deception and conspiracy behind everything! I still question whether the death of that canon was anything other than suicide, in spite of your protestations. Now you come with this fanciful tale of murder, when it is patently obvious that the damned fellow fell from his horse!’
In an effort to keep his temper, the coroner marched around the chamber in Rougemont’s keep. ‘For the last time, will you just listen? First, someone deliberately put a knife across the fetlock of the reeve’s horse so that Fitzhamon was left alone on the hunt. Then he was found dead, with a head wound and a broken neck.’
‘What do you expect on a man who rides his head into a tree and gets tossed off on to the frosty earth?’ snapped de Revelle.
‘Great God! I’ve told you already, he didn’t ride into that tree. The wound went from back to front, but the branch and its conveniently bloody part ran across the track, so the wound was at right angles to where it should have been!’
De Revelle made a noise redolent with scorn at the coroner’s deductions, but John ploughed on. ‘Furthermore, the tree was an oak and my officer picked a piece of beech bark out of Fitzhamon’s head wound. Does beech bark grow on an oak tree?’
The sheriff made another dismissive noise. ‘A trivial matter. Who ever heard of evidence from a scrap of wood? There was blood on the tree, wasn’t there?’
‘No doubt from someone who dipped his finger in Fitzhamon’s blood and smeared it on the place where he pulled off a sliver of bark – oak bark!’
‘Fantasy, John, sheer fantasy! I think it was a mistake, my recommending you for this coroner’s appointment, you have too vivid an imagination for sober legal purposes.’
De Wolfe became more incensed than ever. ‘Recommended me? I was given this job by the Chief Justiciar – and with King Richard’s agreement! I needed no help from you, Sheriff. Do you need reminding that for certain reasons you were held out of office yourself for many months? You are still on probation now, as far as loyal subjects are concerned.’
De Revelle became incandescent with rage and leaped to his feet. ‘You may not talk to a sheriff in that way, damn you! You meddle in things that are beyond your understanding. Fitzhamon died in a hunting accident, understand? Leave it at that.’
‘He was struck on the head with a beech bough, brother-in-law. How do you explain that?’
‘His neck was broken, too. How do you explain that?’
De Wolfe leaned on the table and glared into his brother-in-law’s face. ‘By someone taking his head in their hands when he was unconscious from the blow and wrenching his neck till it snapped!’
‘Pah! More fantasy?’ yelled de Revelle.
‘No, marks on each side of his head! When we returned from the forest, enough time had elapsed for the bruising to come out on the side of his neck, behind the ears and on the temples where strong fingers had dug into the skin. Do you get fingermarks, identical on each side, from hitting a tree, eh?’
Though he had no rational explanation, de Revelle engaged in a repetitious tirade against the coroner’s sanity, which left de Wolfe unmoved. ‘So what are you going to do about this murder?’ he demanded.
‘Do? I’m going to do nothing. There is no murder, you great fool.’
Seeing that it was useless to continue arguing, de Wolfe contented himself with an oblique threat. ‘Well, his son Robert Fitzhamon now knows his father was killed – and, child though he may still be, he has a fair idea why it happened. When he discovers a possible suspect, he will Appeal him and then you will have to do something. If you don’t, I’ll go with young Fitzhamon to the King’s justices and Hubert Walter. If necessary, we’ll follow the King to France and petition him. There may be aspects of this matter that will bring him back post-haste to England.’
The sheriff glared at de Wolfe, but there was a shadow of concern, almost of fear, in his eyes. ‘You meddle in things that are outside your competence,’ he hissed, his voice tremulous with anger. ‘Have a care, John.’
‘It’s you who should watch where you place your feet, Richard – and your loyalties,’ he replied, taking a blind shot at obscure intrigues of which he could only guess. To further wrongfoot the sheriff, he suddenly changed the subject. ‘To go from one violent death to another, what are you going to do about yesterday’s episode? Unfortunately the prime suspect ran away, but I brought you back one villain, who lies in your gaol below.’
De Revelle’s temper subsided, to be replaced by a triumphant smirk. ‘I’m afraid he doesn’t, John.’
The coroner glowered at him suspiciously. ‘What do you mean? I delivered Fulford myself into Stigand’s hands.’
‘And I released him today – myself! You had no right or cause to arrest him. You attacked him without warning, killed his servant and chased off his master, who was unarmed.’
This time, it was the coroner’s turn to explode. ‘Unarmed! Only because I was treading on his bloody sword! And what possessed you to free Fulford? Either he or de Braose killed the canon – or they did it between them.’
From that moment on, there could be no intelligible exchange between coroner and sheriff. They stood almost nose to nose across the table, yelling recriminations at each other. The man-at-arms guarding the sheriff’s chamber stuck his head round the door, thinking murder might be being done, but when he saw the clamorous tableau, he went back hastily to his post, thinking discretion the better part of valour.
After a few moments of futile shouting, de Wolfe decided that he was wasting his time and, without another word, stalked out of the room, with de Revelle still shouting insults at his back.
The coroner’s next port of call was his own house, and by the time he had walked briskly through the cold streets from Rougemont to Martin’s Lane, his anger at the sheriff’s intransigence had faded, to be replaced by a thoughtful consideration of what in God’s name was going on in Devon this New Year. It was becoming obvious that political intrigue was afoot, from the oblique threats of various people, but it was difficult to know who was friend and who was foe.