The swollen cadaver was totally unrecognisable, and there was nothing about the nondescript clothing that helped to identify the man. John was in no mood to dally with the problem, and after Gwyn had turned the body over with a stout stick he declared that there no visible wounds, as far as could be seen. After a few local men had been herded together as a jury, the coroner held a five-minute inquest on the spot and declared that the unknown man had died from an act of God. He ordered Osric, one of the burgesses’s constables, to send for the man who drove the night-soil cart to come and remove the body to the shed behind the cathedral that acted as the public dead-house, until a priest could be persuaded to read a few words over a hastily dug grave in the pauper’s corner of the Close.
When they got back to their chamber in the castle, they found Thomas hard at work as usual with quill and ink. After swilling the smell of putrefaction from his throat with some of Gwyn’s cider, the coroner gave his two henchmen their orders for the coming few days.
‘I have decided to go down to Stoke-in-Teignhead in the morning, to visit my family,’ he announced. ‘I’ll be back in Exeter on Sunday, but I want you two to spend those few days trying to discover more about this unrest in the forest.’
His officer and his clerk looked puzzled, Thomas’s concern being mixed with apprehension, as his undoubted intelligence was not matched by his personal courage.
‘You want me to venture into the forest, Crowner?’ he murmured hesitantly.
John grinned at his clerk’s trepidation. ‘Don’t fret yourself, fellow! I’m not asking you to go charging into the woods waving a broadsword — I’m leaving that to Gwyn. No, I want you to do what you’re best at, worming out information from priests.’
He repeated what little he had been told by Thomas’s uncle about someone in Holy Orders who might be involved in a conspiracy.
The clerk was anxious to assist his master, but doubtful about his chances of success.
‘Where am I to start looking, Crowner, with so little information?’
‘These problems seem concentrated around the southern edge of Dartmoor, Thomas. Why not work your wiles on some of the parish priests around there?’
Leaving the little clerk to ponder his instructions, de Wolfe turned to Gwyn, who placidly sat munching bread and swilling cider.
‘Go with Thomas as far as Bovey Tracey or Ashburton — make sure he doesn’t get lost or fall from his pony! Then while he’s wheedling news out of priests, you can tour the alehouses and see what you can pick up. I’m particularly interested in these bands of outlaws. I’m sure they are being used to do some of the dirty work.’
This was a task that suited the Cornishman admirably — sitting in taverns with the blessing of his master was a commission sent from heaven.
‘We’ll ride out soon after dawn tomorrow,’ promised Gwyn. ‘And be back here on Sunday, hopefully with some useful news.’
John walked down to the stables opposite his house and arranged with Andrew the farrier for Odin to be groomed and given extra feed, ready for an early start the following morning. Then he went across the lane to confront Matilda, who was sitting up in the solar half-heartedly playing with some embroidery by the light from the only window, an unglazed shuttered aperture looking out on the back yard. She had been unusually withdrawn since the visit of Lord Ferrars and his friends, chastened by the seemingly endless untrustworthiness of her brother. But her husband had to broach a subject that was guaranteed to stir up her emotions — a visit to his relatives in Stoke-in-Teignhead.
‘You needn’t think I’m coming with you, John,’ she snapped, her pug face creased into a scowl. ‘I’ll not suffer a few hours on the back of a palfrey for the pleasure of enduring a stay in that primitive house with that old Welsh woman and the two yokels you call your brother and sister!’
Her rapid return to her usual rude and abrasive nature caused John to lose any sympathy that might have been lurking over her disillusionment with her brother. Her unreasonable dislike of his family, though nothing new, was no less insulting to him. It was also unfair, for his mother was a sprightly sixty and undeserving of Matilda’s epithet ‘old Welsh woman’. It was true that she had both Welsh and Cornish ancestry, but she had always tried to be pleasant and kind to Matilda, though her efforts had been in vain. As for the spiteful epithet ‘yokel’ flung at his brother and sister, William and Evelyn may not have been sophisticated city dwellers, but they were solid, dependable country folk. And to call their manor house at Stoke ‘primitive’ was nonsense — it had been rebuilt in stone by his father, Simon de Wolfe, when John was a child, and though it may not have boasted flagged floors and a chimney-piece, it was as good as many others in the county — and in his opinion, better than most.
Repressing the urge to say that he had had no intention of asking her to accompany him, he turned on his heel and clumped down the stairs, going out to Mary’s cook-shed in the yard for a pint of ale and some soothing conversation, while his temper cooled. The maid easily diagnosed his irritation and turned the subject elsewhere.
‘How is Nesta? Is her child-carrying causing her any problems?’
John had confided in Mary soon after he learned that Nesta was pregnant, only narrowly beating the efficient grapevine that spread the news all over the city.
‘She has no problems with her body,’ he grunted. ‘But she is loath to let me acknowledge the child. I can’t understand her attitude. I would have thought she would be glad to have me stand by her.’
Mary had her own ideas on the matter, but prudently kept them to herself.
‘There’ll be several kinds of hell let loose, when she finds out,’ she observed, raising her eyes to the solar window at the top of the stairs.
De Wolfe nodded glumly as he drained his quart pot. ‘I know, but I’ve weathered worse before,’ he muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Rising, he gave Mary a quick affectionate kiss on the top of her glossy brown hair as she bent over a fowl she was gutting for their supper.
‘I’ll have a quick stroll down to the Bush now, to see how she is. Last night she’d not speak to me — she locked herself in her room to cry.’
He spoke with the wounded bewilderment of a man to whom the moods of women were a total mystery, and Mary gave a secret sigh at the naivety of a man who in all other things was so forceful and dominant. Whistling for Brutus, who was lurking under Mary’s table hoping for scraps of offal, he marched away, leaving his maid shaking her head at what was to become of them all.
In the morning, though John left the city at about the same early hour as his assistants, they did not meet, as he went out through the South Gate and they left by the West, crossing the river to reach the main high road that went towards Plymouth.
The coroner’s route lay down the other side of the river as far as the port of Topsham, where he led Odin on to the flimsy skiff of the rope-ferry for the short crossing to other bank. In the fine air of early morning, he trotted across the flat, marshy ground of the estuary towards the line of hills that stretched down to the coast. With his sword hanging from his saddle, he had little fear of ambush, even though he rode alone. This well-used coast track was rarely plagued by outlaws, and the sight of the tall, hawkish figure in black on a heavy warhorse was not a tempting prospect for any casual robber.