'I hear you are to umpire tomorrow, Sir John,' he said with evident pleasure. 'Any hope of you taking a turn yourself?. That's a fine destrier you've got in Odin! John shook his head sadly. 'The last time I took lance and shield, I had my dear old stallion Bran killed under me — and" got my own leg broken into the bargain.' Gabriel scowled at the memory. 'But you were fighting an evil bastard with no sense of honour, Crowner. Tomorrow it would be a fair, friendly contest.' De Wolfe smiled wryly. 'That'll be the day, when a joust is friendly, Gabriel! All those youngbloods might not want to kill me, but they damn well want to win and that can be painful, even fatal!'
The door to the inner chamber opened and the burly figure of Ralph Morin emerged, followed by a soldier stumbling under the weight of an armful of wooden cudgels. The other room was supposed to be a bedchamber for the constable, but Morin used it for storing weapons, as, having a wife and two children, he lived in a large chamber on the upper floor.
'I'm breaking out some less lethal implements for my men,' he explained. 'We can hardly quell a few drunks with ball-maces or arrows!'
'That's what I came about, Ralph. As we expected, our new man next door has passed on the responsibility for keeping order to us. Any problems?' The massive constable pulled at one end of his forked blond beard, a mannerism he had, just as Thomas de Peyne always crossed himself and Gwyn scratched his crotch.
'All the troops will be on the streets for the rest of the week. I've only got two score to defend the whole of Devon, as the King has skimmed off the rest to take to France. But we'll manage well enough.' For a time they talked about the disposition of the soldiers around the town and especially at the tourney field, where trouble was most likely to arise. They ended with the inevitable jars of ale brought in by one of the men-at-arms, before John made his way back to the gatehouse and climbed the twisting stone staircase in the thickness of the wall to reach his garret at the top.
Here he found Gwyn sitting in his usual place, on the sill of the slit window that looked down over the city.
He was aimlessly whittling a piece of stick with his dagger as he whistled tunelessly to himself.
'Where's that damned clerk?' demanded the coroner.
'Gone back to St James' Priory to see how that fellow is getting on.'
John nodded — he had forgotten that he had told Thomas to follow the progress of the assault victim.
'The little runt is starting to fret again over this priest business,' commented the Cornishman. The little that could be seen of his ruddy face behind the ginger hair and whiskers carried an unusually serious expression, 'He's been setting great store by this pardon from Winchester, but he's getting anxious now that he's heard nothing more for many weeks.'
De Wolfe shrugged and dropped down on to his bench, behind the crude table that served as his desk.
'There's nothing I can do about it, Gwyn. This is entirely a Church matter, and you know how long winded they are about everything except money.' Belatedly and reluctantly, the Church authorities had recognised Thomas's innocence and promised to reinstate him. So far, nothing more had been heard, and John was well aware that his own ecclesiastical enemies, who resented his faithful adherence to King Richard and his dogged opposition to those who favoured Prince John's scheming to seize the crown, were spitefully dragging their heels over Thomas to annoy him.
'I'll have another word with John de Alençon and John of Exeter,' he said, naming the Archdeacon of Exeter and the Treasurer, who were both King's men.
'But they know the score already, I doubt they can do anything more.'
Gwyn grunted and threw his stick out of the window.
'I know, Crowner, but I just thought I'd tell you. He's a melancholy little bastard at the best of times, and we don't want him chucking himself off the cathedral again.'
Some time before, the clerk had been so depressed over his situation that he had jumped from the roof of the nave, but had miraculously survived without serious injury.
Gwyn clumped away to seek a game of dice in the guardroom below and John reluctantly settled to practise his letters. For a long time he had been trying to learn to read and write, with some tuition from a vicar in the cathedral. Thomas, who would have been a far better teacher, had given up trying to help him, as de Wolfe was very sensitive about the process, which he felt was rather effeminate for an old warrior and former Crusader. His devotion to the task was sporadic, as he had no great incentive, and his progress was painfully slow. In truth, the process bored him and his attention span was poor. After an hour, much of which he spent gazing blankly at the sliver of sky visible through the window, he abruptly pushed back his bench, grabbed his cloak and clattered down the stairs to the open air.
The fair was now in full swing as de Wolfe pushed his way down the central lane between the stalls. It was crowded with people, jostling each other to get a better look at the goods on offer and dodging the handcarts, barrows and porters that were bringing new merchandise to the booths and carting away larger purchases made by customers. There was a constant roar of sound, compounded of the cries of vendors, shouted offers from buyers, the clatter of hawker's rattles and the excited buzz of chatter and gossip. Jugglers and acrobats performed between the stalls, sheets of cloth spread before them to catch stray half-pennies.
Musicians, singly and in groups, performed on the sackbut, shalmes and cornet, in the expectation of a few half-pennies being thrown on to the threadbare cloaks spread hopefully in front of them. Minstrels and ballad singers, some good, some bad, added to the cacophony, and as John neared the makeshift stage at the centre of the fair a new collection of sounds assailed his ears.
On the platform, a miracle play was being performed, and he stopped for a few moments at the edge of the crowd, his height allowing him to see over their heads. This one was being enacted by clerics from the cathedral and appeared to represent the temptation of Adam in the Garden of Eden. Several vicars stood around the edges of the backdrop, on which was painted a crude forest. They held flaming torches, smoking with incense wafting out to the awe-struck audience. A garish tree, made from wood and canvas, stood in the centre, and the actors were posturing around this in exaggerated poses. One was Adam, dressed in a tattered leopard skin, and another was dressed as the Devil, his face covered by a snake-like mask. Both were recognisable as secondaries, apprentice priests under the age of twenty-four, which was the minimum age for ordination. On the other side of the apple tree stood a young chorister in female dress, taking the part of Eve, as no women were allowed to appear in dramatic performances.
As John watched, the three actors went through the motions of the Genesis story, with the wicked serpent tempting Adam with a large red-painted wooden apple.
They made no sound, apart from stomping around the hollow stage, but a loud, high-pitched commentary was delivered by a robed vicar, who stood at a lectern to one side, reading from a manuscript book, relating the tale as the players went through the motions. He spoke mainly in French, which many understood, but with some English thrown in, as the idea of these performances was to enlighten the common throng in their own language. De Wolfe thought it ridiculous that all church services, apart from sermons, were delivered in Latin, which was incomprehensible to the bulk of the congregation. The Bible, the Vulgate of St Jerome, was also in Latin, apart from a few fragmentary vernacular copies, so even if the faithful could read, they would not be able to understand a word if they only had English.