Henry de Furnellis grunted his bluff thanks. He was not an articulate man and spoke only when he had something to say, unlike some of the babblers here who paraded their tongues along with their stylish new clothes. In fact, Henry was a very dull man, elderly and reluctant to exert himself in his duties as sheriff. He had been Chosen by Hubert Walter, the Chief Justiciar and virtual regent of England during the King's absence, for being a safe, if unenthusiastic, pair of hands, unlikely to indulge in the corruption and treachery that had caused de Revelle's recent downfall.
De Furnellis was a large, lumpy man, with a shaven red face, watery blue eyes and a big nose.
sparse grey hair was cut short and his downturned mouth and the loose folds of skin under his chin him the appearance of a sad hunting hound.
'I doubt if I'll be here for much longer this time' he added phlegmatically. 'I'm well aware that Winchester only put me here to tide things over following the sudden departure of de Revelle. I want to get back to my manor as soon as possible, de Wolfe — so I hope you'll not burden me with too many problems in the coming months.'
The mention of the former sheriff made them all uneasy, and the coroner noticed Ralph Morin rather furtively over his Shoulder.
'Has anyone seen him lately?' asked the constable, a tall, muscular man with a forked brown beard and the look of a Viking chieftain.
John de Alençon shook his tonsured head. 'I suspect he's lying low at either Revelstoke or Tiverton. In spite of his misdeeds, I feel some compassion for him, being ejected in disgrace from such a high position.' The archdeacon was thin almost to the point of emaciation, his ascetic mode of life relieved only by a dry sense of humour and a taste for fine French wines. He was dressed in a long black cassock with a plain silver cross hanging around his neck above which a pair of lively blue eyes sparkled in his lined face.
'He was damned lucky to escape a hanging!' snapped Walter Ralegh, who was a Devonshire baron, though much of his time was spent either at the court or touring around the southern counties as an itinerant justice. A large, grizzled man with a bluff, impatient manner, he was an old comrade of de Wolfe's, having campaigned with him both in Ireland and the Holy Land.
This talk of Richard de Revelle's fall from grace again caused John to look across at Matilda, sitting alone and dejected at the table. Though she did not openly accuse him of being the instrument of her brother's downfall, the implication was always there.
Relations between them had been strained for most of the seventeen years of their marriage, and this latest fiasco had done-nothing to heal the wounds.
He was just about to move back to her, to keep her company and try to make some conversation, when thankfully he saw a dandified figure slip on to the bench alongside her. It was Hugh de Relaga, one of Exeter's two portreeves, the provosts chosen by the other burgesses to lead the city council. De Relaga, a prominent merchant, was de Wolfe's business partner and another good friend. The loot that the coroner had brought home from numerous campaigns across Europe and the Levant had been wisely invested with Hugh in a joint wool-exporting business. Second only Io Dartmoor tin in the economy of south-west England, wool provided a steady income for de Wolfe — in fact, it was a prerequisite for appointment as a coroner that the incumbent had an income of at least twenty pounds a year. The reasoning was that those with such riches had no need to embezzle from the lands in their keeping — a rather naive hope in many cases, though John de Wolfe happened to be scrupulously honest.
As he watched his short, portly friend exert himself to be pleasant to Matilda, a voice in his ear jerked him back to the group of men he was neglecting.
'I said, John, d'you think there'll be any trouble at this damned October fair this week?' Walter Ralegh nudged his arm to emphasise his point.
'Fair? There's always trouble at fairs, it's the nature of the beast,' replied John. 'But it's the tournament on Wednesday that's likely to cause the most problems. High-spirited young knights, drunken squires and the usual run of cut-purses and.pickpockets probably even a few horse thieves.'
'But this is not going to be one of those terrible mélées, surely?' objected the archdeacon, who strongly supported the ecclesiastical disapproval of tourneying. 'Men end up dead at those, a sacrilegious waste of human life, to say nothing of the damage they cause to property and the poor people in the vicinity!'
Walter guffawed at the canon's severe view of a true Norman's favourite pastime. They stop a good warrior from going rusty, Archdeacon! You'd be among the first to complain if England was overrun by Philip Of France because our knights were out of practice!'
The coroner hastened to reassure his friend. 'Don't concern yourself, John, this will be a small-scale affair, just a one-day event tagged on to the fair. There will be only individual jousts down on Bull Mead — there's no room for rampaging there.'
'But there'll be even more high-spirited men in the city than if it was just a fair,' grumbled the castle constable, whose men-at-arms would have to patrol Exeter to try to keep the peace. 'These events attract too many thieves, rogues and vagabonds as it is, without adding to the trouble with a tourney!' The four men continued arguing the matter as they stood between the tables. From his position leaning against a nearby wall, an unusually large fellow regarded them with a grin on his face. He was huge, being both tall and broad, but he was even more noticeable for his tangled mop of bright red hair and a huge drooping moustache of the same colour which overhung his lantern jaw. A.large nose and a ruddy face were relieved by a pair of eyes as blue as the archdeacon's.
'What are you leering at, you great oaf?' snapped the man standing alongside him, one who was as great a contrast to the ginger giant as it was possible to imagine.
He barely came up to Gwyn of Polruan's shoulder and was as skinny as the Cornishman was muscular. In contrast to the scuffed leather jerkin and serge breeches of the big man, a long, patched tunic of faded black hung from Thomas de Peyne's thin, stooped shoulders, giving him a clerical appearance. This was the impression he always strove for, as he had in fact been a priest at Winchester until unfrocked three years earlier for an alleged indecent act with one of his girl pupils in the cathedral school. Recently his name had been cleared, but the Church had still not got around to publicly restoring his reputation, which partly accounted for the habitually dismal expression on his narrow pinched face. He had a high, intelligent forehead, but a long thin nose and a receding chin added to his unattractiveness, made worse by a slight crook back and a limp, caused by disease in childhood.
'Why are you staring at our master over there?' he insisted in his reedy voice.
Gwyn, de Wolfe's squire and bodyguard, lifted a quart pot of ale and swallowed almost half the contents before replying to the little man, who was the coroner's clerk.
'I'm watching our crowner trying to be friendly to the new sheriff, though I know full well he thinks he's an old fool,' rumbled Gwyn.
'At least he's said to be honest and not ambitious for his own advancement, as was the last one,' objected Thomas, who almost on principle disagreed with everything the coroner's officer said. Though the two bickered incessantly, they were good friends, and Gwyn displayed an almost paternal attitude to the little man, born of the troubles that had afflicted him for much of his life.
Gwyn sank the rest of his ale and wiped his huge moustache with the back of his hand. 'True enough, but I suspect John de Wolfe will have even more work to do in future, as this new fellow is unlikely to move himself to do more than necessary.'
They watched the shifting patterns of men and women in the hall, as people moved around gossiping, taking more food and drink from the tables and from the trays and jugs held by servants. The costumes were many and varied, especially among the merchants and burgesses of the county, who tended to be more colourful in their garb than the soldiers and officials.