'You'll get little sense from him, Crowner,' warned the monk. 'But see his face and limbs, he's been badly used.'
The coroner's team saw that the man, who appeared to be about thirty years of age, had a long, shallow gash across his forehead, still caked with dried blood. Much of the rest of his face was red and purple from overlapping bruises, and his right eyelid was black and swollen, closing the eye completely. Both his arms, which were outside the coarse blanket that covered him, were similarly bruised and scratched.
'The sides of his chest and loins are also bruised,' commented Francis. 'I think he's had a kicking as well.' John bent over the bed and in a loud clear voice tried to get some answers from the victim, but though the one good eye seemed to focus upon him, no recognisable words came between the wheezing and spluttering from the man's throat.
'He's got a phlegmatous affliction of his lungs, Sir John,' said the infirmarian. 'He must have been thrown into the river and sucked a fair amount of water down into his vitals, so he's contracted a fever. It may yet carry him off.'
Undaunted, de Wolfe again crouched by the mattress and this time tried to get a response to simple questions.
'Your name is Terrus?' The eye swivelled and the rapid wheezing seemed to take on a different note.
Encouraged, de Wolfe tried again.
'Was August Scrope your master?' This time Terrus managed a slight nod as well as a variation in his gasping.
By means of half a dozen leading questions that required only an affirmative answer or an apparent denial, John managed to learn that the man and his employer had been attacked by two mounted men who had followed them down the Topsham road until they reached a place between the trees where no one else was in sight. It seemed that Terrus must have lost conciousness then, as he had no further recollection of anything.
By the time John had got this far, the victim had collapsed sideways on to his palliasse and was gasping for breath, his one good eye no longer visible. The infirmarian declared that he must be left alone, to either recover or die, and reluctantly the coroner left the cell. They sat in the small deserted refectory, where the cellarer brought them some ale and bread, and discussed the latest turn of events.
'If they were followed down the road by men on horseback, then it was not forest outlaws who robbed them,' declared Gwyn, wiping ale from his moustache with the back of his hand.
'Sounds as if their assailants knew that they had something valuable with them,' observed Thomas reasonably. 'But how could they know that?'
'From the fair, I suppose,' replied Gwyn. 'A silversmith is always fair game for robbery.'
De Wolfe shook his head. 'The fair wasn't open on Monday, when they were attacked. The silver goods were not on display until this morning. So it must have been at the New Inn — perhaps someone in the tavern overheard Scrope telling of his trip to Topsham.' They finished off their refreshments and made for the door, to thank the monks for their hospitality.
'We'll get no more sense out of this Terrus until he recovers — if he recovers!' grunted Gwyn. 'We need some description of these miscreants.'
John turned to Thomas and said something that gladdened his heart.
'Our good clerk here is the best link to any religious house. He can keep in touch with this place and discover if and when the man gets his wits back.
Meanwhile, there's plenty for us to do back in the city.'
Chapter Three
When John arrived at his house in Martin's Lane, he again found his wife missing. He was too late for their noontide dinner, the main meal of the day, and obviously Matilda had not waited for him.
'She's gone to her cousin in Fore Street,' announced Mary briskly, as she hurried in with a tray of bread, cheese and cold meat for him. He sat in the cheerless hall, perched on a stool at the end of the long oaken table, glaring at the faded tapestries that tried to conceal the bleakness of the timber walls. His maid-of-all-work banged a quart pot of ale in front of him. 'But she said she'll be back in time for supper — and that her brother will be coming to join you at the meal!' De Wolfe swore out loud. 'What in hell is that scoundrel coming for? That's spoiled my appetite already!' he exclaimed, immediately giving the lie to his words by energetically attacking a slice of mutton with his dagger, as if it were Richard de Revelle's gizzard. As the thoaaght of his brother-in-law invading his house and his privacy spread deeper into his mind, he threw down the knife and grabbed his tankard angrily.
'To hell with him, I'll not sit down at table with that traitor and thief!' He sucked down some ale and banged the pot down again. 'I'll be eating supper at the Bush tonight, Mary. At least there I can choose what company I keep!'
His cook-maid shrugged as she picked up his cloak from the floor where he had thrown it on coming in.
'It's your house, Crowner — but the mistress will give you a hard time if you don't turn up.'
'Ha! What's new about that, girl? She hardly speaks to me as it is.'
Mary made for the door, muttering something under her breath as she went. Usually she supported John against his wife, as far as it was possible without jeopardising her job, but sometimes he felt that she had joined the legion of women who conspired to make his life miserable. Even the usually amiable Nesta had her moments of provoking annoyance and aggravation, though admittedly, since taking up with John, she had suffered enough distressing events to give her good cause.
He sat alone, champing his way through the food that had been set before him, pouring more ale from the pitcher Mary had left on the table. Now that it was October, a pile of logs glowed in the hearth, below the conical chimney that was his pride and joy. The only part of the house that was built of stone, it took the smoke up through the roof, a fairly novel idea for Exeter and one that he had had copied after seeing a similar device in Brittany.
John took his last pot of ale to sit in one the cowled monk's chairs near the fire, where Brutus was already stretched out to enjoy the warmth. As he slowly savoured the last of his drink, he thought about what he had to do for the rest of the day. He should tell the portreeves about the murder of one of the stall-holders, as they were the main sponsors of the fair that had brought August Scrope to Exeter. They were also both senior men in the city's merchant guilds, and given that one of the prime purposes of these organisations was the well-being of members and their families, no doubt they would help in getting the silversmith's body back to Totnes and seeing that the local guild attended to his affairs, though as he was said to be a widower with a new mistress, perhaps that was not such an urgent issue. De Wolfe decided that he would have to keep the new sheriff informed of what was going on not only telling him about the killing, but reassuring him that all seemed in order at the tourney field. It was a sensitive topic for all towns that had scores of high-spirited knights and squires assembling for what was essentially a battle. Even if the sport was not meant to be lethal, the combination of pent-up excitement and aggression, fuelled by excessive drinking among volatile young men, was an inflammable situation which could easily be ignited by a spark from some personal quarrel.
John decided that he would also have a word with his good friend Ralph Morin, the castle constable, to ensure that as many men-at-arms as could be spared were sent to Bull Mead the next day. The fair itself could be left to the constables and the stewards, though after dark the main trouble would be in the city streets, where thieves and cut-purses would have been attracted by the crowds, and where the taverns would be bursting at the seams with rowdy drinkers looking for a fight.