During the few minutes that he stood there, some of the audience began to drift away, for they had either seen it many times before or preferred the pageants put on by the guilds, which were usually more spectacular and often dealt with secular topics, rather than the well-worn biblical themes that the priests provided to drive home their messages of piety and morality.
John himself soon tired of the show and walked on down through the lower part of the fairground. The silversmith's stall was deserted, all the stock taken away for safe-keeping by the two assistants. He knew that one had gone back to Totnes to tell Scrope's family of the tragedy and arrange for collection of the body as soon as the inquest was over. The other man was waiting in his lodgings until the coroner told him he was needed.
John again cut across to Magdalen Street and went on to Bull Mead, where there was now more activity than there had been that morning. All the erection work on the stand and the tents was finished and many more coloured pennants were flying bravely around the jousting arena. A number of knights and their squires were riding up and down the field, trying out the feel of the turf and practising the handling of their lances and shields, though today they wore no armour or helmets.
Behind the makeshift platforms for the more privileged spectators, several tilts had been set up in an area reserved for the contestants. These were crude mechanical targets for the combatants to try out their skills, normally used for training young men in the art of jousting.
John watched with a critical eye as several excited, sweating youths galloped their horses towards these devices. One consisted of a long cross-arm pivoted horizontally on a post. From one end hung a shield and on the other a sack full of sand. As the coroner watched with a sardonic grin on his face, he saw a young man charging his heavy horse at the tilt, yelling at the top of his voice, his lance lowered and his shield held before his chest. He rammed the target with his blunted point and ducked, but he miscalculated, and as the beam swung the sack came around violently and struck him on the back of his neck, knocking him clean out of his saddle.
There was raucous laughter from a group of his friends watching the debacle and as the youth picked himself up from the dried mud he screamed abuse at them and stalked across to punch the ringleader in the face. A scuffle began immediately, but broke up as two stewards and a couple of men-at-arms began yelling at them. De Wolfe knew that this was the sort of bad tempered high spirits that could readily develop into a full-scale riot if not nipped in the bud, and he hoped that Ralph Morin would have enough men down here tomorrow to keep the peace.
He spent almost an hour on the field, watching the preparations and viewing the practice bouts with an experienced eye. The older knights were naturally more expert, many of them spending much of their time away from the battlefield going around the tournaments. Some had come from as far afield as France, the Low Countries and even Germany, all in search of winnings in the form of horses and armour. There would be no chance of ransom money in a small tourney like this, as there were no mock battles like those allowed near Salisbury and the other official tournament fields, but the professional jousters filled in between these events by visiting as many of the smaller events as they could manage.
A number of old soldiers were standing around the edge of the field, some of them aged and crippled in past battles. They were content to study these young men going through their paces, and watched with critical but dreamy eyes, seeing themselves long ago, when their joints were still supple and their eyesight keen.
John stood for a while talking to them, realising that he too would soon approach their condition, a spectator with only memories and scars to remind him of his former prowess.
Then he shook his head angrily, telling himself that there was plenty of strength left in his arm and iron in his soul, sufficient to show these callow youths a thing or two! He stalked off and, as if to confirm to himself his own virility, directed his steps purposefully towards the Bush Inn, where a pretty young woman waited to prove that senility and impotence were still well in the future.
Sir John de Wolfe spent a pleasant hour in Nesta's small room, a corner of the loft partitioned off from the rows of penny mattresses that were fully booked every night for the duration of the fair. They made relaxed, languorous love, the grim-faced coroner becoming a different man in the company of his amorous mistress. His lean, dark face softened and his eyes sparkled as he kissed and cuddled her — or 'cwtched' her, as they said in Welsh, for the pair always spoke in the Celtic tongue that was her first language and the one that John had learned at his mother's knee, for she was also of Welsh stock. Her mother had been Cornish, but her father was Welsh, so half of John's blood was Celtic in origin. Even Gwyn spoke this 'language of heaven' with them, much to Thomas de Peyne's annoyance, for the western Welsh of Cornwall was almost identical with that of Wales, and quite similar to that of the Bretons across the Channel.
In the early evening they made their way down the ladder again, as Nesta claimed that such a busy night needed her attendance to make sure that her girls and Edwin were satisfying her customers' wants for food and drink. The taproom was crowded, the regulars being outnumbered by the many strangers who were attending the fair. The renowned food of the Bush was much in demand, and Nesta had hired an extra ale-maid and a kitchen skivvy for these hectic few days.
The one-eyed potman had still managed to keep John's favourite bench and small table free beside the hearth, in which an autumn fire was now glowing from a circle of logs arranged like the spokes of a wheel.
The coroner sat there chatting to various acquaintances, as he contentedly downed a large pot of ale and later ate his way through a thick trencher covered in slices of roast pork and fried onions, with a pewter dish of boiled beans on the side. Life seemed tolerably good at the moment, with both his stomach and his loins satisfied. The only cloud on his horizon was the thought of his brother-in-law sitting at his own table in Martin's Lane, but he could hardly deny his own wife's right to entertain her only brother, as long as John was not forced to be present.
As dusk began to fall, Edwin went around the noisy, smoke-filled taproom and lit the tallow dips that sat in sconces around the walls. Candles were too expensive for most people, so small dishes of mutton fat with a floating wick were used to give a feeble light. Soon afterwards, a small figure entered and approached de Wolfe's table, diffidently sliding on to the stool opposite. Thomas de Peyne was not over-fond of taverns, his priestly upbringing leading him to consider them dens of iniquity. Even after a year in the coroner's service, he rarely entered one except when his duties demanded. This was one such occasion, as he had some news for his master.
'Crowner, I've been to the priory, as you commanded,' he announced in his rather squeaky voice. 'That man Terrus has recovered his senses — in fact, he's almost back to normal!'
John's black brows rose, as he had not been expecting the silversmith's servant to recover this quickly, if at all.
'Has he said anything useful?'
'The infirmarian allowed me into his cell for a few moments. Terrus told me that two men on horseback attacked them, and although he recollects nothing after being struck on the head, he now remembers something about them.'
John felt that Gwyn's long-windedness was rubbing off on his clerk, but held his impatience in check. 'And what was that?'
'He claims that they were not ruffianly outlaws though they would hardly be on horses if they were.
Though not gentlemen, he felt they were a better class of body servants — or maybe some manner of I squires to lesser gentry. They wore plain but good tunics and breeches and their horses had decent harnesses.