‘What do those marks on his arms imply, John?’ asked the Archdeacon.
The coroner stood back while Gwyn rolled the canon face-up again. ‘Grip-marks, where he was seized. Those round bruises are from hard pressure by fingertips.’
De Alencon’s lean face was a picture of grief. ‘What terror and pain he must have suffered. He was such a mild man, with never any exposure to violence – and then to end like this. What’s to be done, John?’
A new voice answered him from the doorway. ‘A hunt for his killers, with no effort spared, Archdeacon.’ It was the sheriff, the coroner’s dandyish brother-in-law. He strode into the room and looked down at the dead priest with more indignation than sorrow. ‘What a thing to happen on the eve of Christ Mass!’
Almost on cue, the great bell of the cathedral opposite began tolling for the delayed matins. ‘I must go. I cannot miss the service even for this tragedy,’ explained the Archdeacon. ‘And I must tell the other canons what’s happened.’ He went towards the door, then turned back to the coroner and sheriff. ‘I will send word to the Bishop as soon as the gates open at dawn. But I know that although this happened within the cathedral precinct, he would want you secular authorities to deal with it.’
Although they were inside the city walls, the whole of the cathedral Close was outside the jurisdiction of the burgesses of Exeter, which often gave rise to friction. But murder was against the King’s peace and even a bishop would be unlikely to exclude the law officers.
‘I suggest the dead man lies here until the morning,’ said de Wolfe. ‘There’s little point in setting up a hue and cry in the middle of the night, especially as he’s been dead for hours and the trail is cold.’
Richard de Revelle waved an elegantly gloved hand at the Archdeacon. ‘Tell Bishop Marshal that the sheriff will spare no effort to bring these devils to justice. They’ll be dangling from the gallows by the time he returns from Gloucester.’
At this the coroner caught Gwyn’s eye, but his henchman’s face remained impassive, though de Wolfe could read his thoughts about the sheriff’s arrogance. As de Alencon left, followed by the anxious steward and most of the residents, the two main law officers of Devon faced each other across the corpse, flanked by Gwyn and Thomas de Peyne.
‘So what’s this all about, John?’ demanded Richard. He stood with one hand on his hip, his fine green cloak thrown back over one shoulder to reveal his richly embroidered tunic of fine linen. The smooth skin of his rather narrow face was pink, both from the cold air outside and from John’s best wine.
Grudgingly, the coroner told him what little they knew so far. De Revelle seemed unconvinced, although he had just assured the Archdeacon that the killers would soon be found. ‘You find a man swinging by his own girdle-cord in his own privy, yet you immediately claim he’s been murdered?’
As always, his tone of patronising criticism made de Wolfe itch to punch him on his sharp nose but, with an effort, he held his temper in check. ‘A senior priest is hardly likely to jeopardise his entry into heaven by taking the life God gave him – especially almost on his Saviour’s birthday! But we don’t need theology to prove that. Just look there.’ He pointed at the still figure on the bed. ‘Does a suicide bruise his own arms, strike himself in the mouth and then, before he hangs, throttle himself from behind?’ he asked sarcastically.
The sheriff sniffed delicately. He had no interest in the state of the body, only in any political implications that might involve him. He needed to avoid trouble, but also to milk the best advantage for himself with influential people like Bishop Henry Marshal, brother to William, Marshal of England. ‘Cover the fellow up, for God’s sake!’ he snapped imperiously at Gwyn, flicking a glove at the folded blanket at the foot of the bed. Then he turned to leave. ‘I’ll send up to the castle to get Ralph Morin to send men-at-arms to search the town.’
Morin was the constable of Rougemont, the castle perched at the highest point of the city in the northeast corner of the walls. It took its name from the colour of the local sandstone from which it was built.
De Wolfe was scornful of this useless gesture. ‘What are they going to do after midnight? Beat every passerby into a confession?’ Knowing de Revelle’s methods, he thought that this was not as fanciful as it might sound.
The sheriff gave John another of his pitying looks, as if humouring a backward child. ‘And how would my new coroner handle it, then?’
John angrily opened his mouth to shout that he was the King’s coroner, not de Revelle’s, but bit back the words: they had been through these arguments time and again. The sheriff resented the establishment of coroners in England four months previously, but he was in no position to defy the edicts of Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury and Chief Justiciar to Richard the Lionheart. ‘We need to know why Robert de Hane was killed,’ he said tersely. ‘Then that should tell us who killed him. Rushing aimlessly around the streets will get us nowhere.’
‘Was it robbery? Some of these prebendaries are rich men,’ asked de Revelle, going off at a tangent.
For answer, de Wolfe waved a hand around the bare room. ‘Not this one. He has a reputation for a modest, even Spartan way of life. There’s little worth killing for here.’
The sheriff seemed to lose interest. ‘We’ll leave it until the morning, then. I must get back to my good wife.’
John straightened his back until his head almost touched the ceiling beams. ‘I’ll walk back to my house with you, then.’
De Revelle pulled on his gloves. ‘Lady Eleanor has gone back to Rougemont. I sent her with an escort when I came here. Your guests have dispersed, I’m afraid.’ He said it with a certain spiteful glee, knowing that his sister would blame her husband stridently for the collapse of her cherished social occasion.
The sheriff was right, for when John arrived in Martin’s Lane ten minutes later, he found the hall deserted, the table scattered forlornly with empty cups, tankards and scraps of food. Brutus still lay before the dying fire and gave him a slow wag from his bushy tail, the only welcome he was to get that night.
When he climbed the wooden stairs from the backyard to the solar chamber, he found a grim-faced Matilda sitting in the only chair. The rabbit-toothed Lucille was unpinning her hair and helping her off with her new kirtle of stiff brocade and laying out her bed-shift.
There was an ominous silence until the ugly Frenchwoman left for her cubicle under the stairs. Then the storm broke. ‘You’ve done it again, husband,’ Matilda snarled. ‘You seem to delight in spoiling every effort I make to increase your standing with the better folk in this city.’
‘Increase my standing, be damned!’ he retorted. ‘I’m the King’s coroner, I don’t need to kiss the arses of any burgesses or bishops. If you want more social life, so be it – but don’t pretend it’s to advance my career for I’m quite content as I am.’
Matilda had never been one to duck a fight and she counter-attacked with relish, her solid, fleshy face as pugnacious as that of a mastiff. ‘You’re content, are you? I should think so! You spend most of your time in taverns or in bed with some strumpet. You use this new job as an excuse to avoid me. You’re away from home for days and nights at a time – God knows what you get up to!’
‘A senior canon of this cathedral has been murdered, Matilda. You’re so thick with the clergy of this city, surely you know what a scandal this will be. Did you expect me to tell the Bishop when he returns that I was sorry I couldn’t attend to it but my wife was having a party?’