When they arrived, a couple of monks and their prior were waiting outside, the latter an amiable, fat man with a fiery red face that matched the bare skin of his tonsured head. St James’s was a Cluniac house, so they wore the black habits of the Benedictine order. The finding of a sturgeon was a welcome break even on the Sabbath from the routine of their day, and they walked with de Wolfe down to the riverbank, where three fishermen were standing around a large muddy pool alongside the salmon trap.
The prior offered the obvious explanation. ‘It was stranded by the falling tide. On the next flood, it will just swim away.’
The fishermen were scowling at the prior, whose honest meddling in calling the coroner had deprived them of a valuable catch. As a fisherman’s son, Gwyn typically sided with them against the Church. He went over to them as they stood barefoot in the mud, their rough smocks girded up to their thighs, to discuss the strange phenomenon of a sturgeon trying to force its way up-river at the wrong time of year.
The fish was at least six feet long, its bony tube-like snout projecting in front of it like a sword. The pool was small and was draining away even more as the tide dropped, so that the fish had to swim in a tight figure-of-eight in the shallowing water.
‘What’s to be done about it, Crowner?’ asked one of the fishermen.
John considered the matter sympathetically. He was well aware that, especially at this time of year, fishermen had a hard time, hovering on the brink of survival with the sale of fish the only means of buying bread. But the law of the land said that these fish were the property of the King.
‘Who found it?’ he asked.
One of the men claimed that he had discovered it when he came down at the start of the ebb tide to see what was in the fish traps. He was a sickly, middle-aged man, thin and undernourished. De Wolfe knew that whatever the fish fetched would go to the Royal Treasury, undoubtedly to be put towards more warhorses, arrows and armour for the distant battles in France. He came to a decision and turned to the prior. ‘Although by law the whole value of the fish should go to the King, I realise that the labour of landing, gutting, butchering and selling must be recompensed. Therefore I decree that it be given to these three fishermen, who must get the best price for it. They must divide the proceeds in half, keeping one half for themselves and the other for the Crown.’
He glared at the three men, whose faces had lit up: they had had no expectations of getting anything at all from this valuable catch. They readily agreed and de Wolfe ordered them to give half the sale price to the prior, to be kept by him until it was collected when the Justices next came to Exeter. They would pay it in to the royal treasure chest kept in Winchester or the new Exchequer treasury at Westminster.
Gwyn was as pleased as the other men at de Wolfe’s generosity and helped them to haul out the great fish, struggling and thrashing in its death throes. The coroner accepted the prior’s invitation to meet his monks over a cup of wine in St James’s, to which gathering Thomas managed to get himself included, much to his delight.
The air was still and icy when the four horsemen reached Berry Pomeroy castle at about noon. The smoke from the kitchen fires rose straight up to a pale blue sky that had a few high mackerel clouds. As the two soldiers of the escort walked all the horses to the stables in the bailey, they assured each other that there would be no snow to prevent them getting back to Exeter by nightfall.
Richard de Revelle and Canon de Boterellis were received at the door of the donjon by Henry de la Pomeroy and conducted to his private chamber off the hall, where first they warmed themselves by a good fire after their frigid journey, then were fortified with hot food and wine. The sheriff’s visit had been arranged days before, though his bringing the Precentor was an emergency move triggered by the events of the night. Henri de Nonant and Bernard Cheevers were there too, as previously arranged, to talk to de Revelle, and the five men stood around the hearth as soon as the travellers were refreshed.
‘I brought de Boterellis to report on what Bishop Henry learned in Gloucester and Coventry last week,’ began the sheriff. ‘But what happened last night is of more immediate importance to us – and to all who support the just cause, if my damned brother-in-law goes whining to Hubert Walter.’
De Nonant, the big-boned lord of Totnes, waved a hand towards the bailey outside. ‘We know what happened. Giles Fulford rode in here just before you, as he left Exeter the moment the gates opened. He’s still wheezing from dung-water in his lungs from that horse trough.’ He spat noisily into the fire, perhaps a comment on Fulford’s inability to keep out of trouble.
De Revelle was put on the defensive, feeling blamed for his inability to control the Exeter end of this conspiracy. ‘How in hell could I foresee that this idiot squire would go straight to his favourite ale-house when I released him from gaol? He should have kept in hiding until he could leave the city, not lay himself open to kidnap. Though that was something no one could have dreamed of – only my devious brother-in-law could have thought up a move like that!’
Pomeroy’s sour face regarded him with distaste, his drooping moustache following the downturned corners of his flabby lips. ‘For Jesus Christ’s sake, de Revelle, can’t you control that man? You’re the sheriff! Why don’t you lock the bastard up or hang him?’
Bernard Cheever, ever the conciliator, came to de Revelle’s aid. ‘Come on, Henry, de Wolfe’s the King’s crowner – and he’s married to Richard’s sister! This has to be done with subtlety.’
The blunt lord of Totnes brought them back to the main issues. ‘The damage is done – no use crying over spilt milk. John de Wolfe guesses there is another rebellion in the wind and that some of us are involved. He has no proof, unless the sheriff here has admitted anything, so we have to make sure that the coroner doesn’t find any further evidence and that he won’t go running to the Justiciar or the King about it.’
‘He’s well in with both of them, more’s the pity, since they were all in Palestine,’ muttered Richard. ‘When Hubert Walter was here last month, they had their heads together a great deal – though, thank God, that was before any of our plans were known to de Wolfe.’
Henri de Nonant turned to the priest, who had been silent until now. ‘What news did the Bishop bring from Gloucester, Precentor?’
Thomas de Boterellis considered his answer carefully, his small dark eyes peering gimlet-like from the folds of his fat face. ‘Things are moving, but slowly. Your kinsman, Hugh de Nonant, who was deprived of his bishopric in Coventry, is being allowed by the King to purchase a pardon for the sum of two thousand marks.’
Pomeroy laughed cynically. ‘The Lionheart would sell his grandmother for the price of a quiver of arrows.’
‘But not his mother!’ quipped Cheever, and bitterly they all agreed. The old Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, was the only person who could control her wayward sons. It was largely due to her rapid return to England, when Richard had been locked up in Germany, that the Prince’s attempt to seize the throne from his elder brother had been demolished.