'Have you reconsidered your quite unreasonable decision to force us to wait two days before we can decently bury our poor brother?' barked Ralph. 'I consider it an insult to the memory of a fellow-knight and manor-lord and I will be reporting your malfeasance to the bishop!'
De Wolfe glared at him. 'The bishop? What in hell has the bishop to do with anything?' he snarled. 'Report what you like, sir, but at least do it to the correct authority. The proper quarter is the Chief Justiciar or the King's justices when they next come to Devon. All you'll get is confirmation of the legal procedure, but you are very welcome to present your complaint!' He thumped his fist on the table in annoyance. 'Now, sir, answer my questions. Is your recollection of the events of last evening similar to that of your kinsmen here?'
Grudgingly, Ralph agreed that Hugo had left the room soon after the meal, at which, as usual, he had drunk liberally. He had not been seen again that night and in the morning a search was mounted for him when his wife reported that he had not returned to their chamber all night. John pondered for a moment.
'Before the ladies are called, I will dispose of a more delicate matter. I assume from what I have been told by others that it was not unusual for him to take a wench somewhere for his pleasure?'
Joel grinned. 'Don't we all do the same at some time, Crowner? I have heard that you yourself are not above slaking your natural desires occasionally!'
'Mind your tongue, young man,' snapped de Wolfe. 'I am only concerned with Hugo Peverel's activities.'
Odo broke in with a rather weary voice. 'Whatever the rest of us do — and I am not a married man — Hugo had a strong appetite for life, be it food, drink, tourneying or women! Yes, he often took one of the servant girls for his satisfaction. They were not forced into it, but were often eager for both the experience and for the silver pennies.'
'My brother was no rapist, if that is what you're insinuating,' sneered Ralph. 'Yet this wash-house slut must surely have killed him! Perhaps she robbed him for the extra coins she saw in his purse.'
John, exasperated by the endless obduracy of the man, shook his dark head emphatically. 'There were still coins in his scrip — and the girl possessed no knife at all. Furthermore, her only raiment was free from even a single spot of blood.'
'None of those proclaim her innocent, Crowner. Who knows how many pennies were in his purse before she pillaged it?'
John sighed — nothing he could say would shift this man's stubborn notions, some of which he suspected had been planted by Richard de Revelle.
'Very well, then tell me if there is anyone in the manor — or without it — who had such a grudge against Hugo that they might have wished him dead.' Again there was silence, though each brother cast a somewhat furtive glance at the others. Finally Odo answered.
'Not in the manor, of course not! Hugo was the lord, everyone depended upon him for their very life. The dwelling over their head, the food they ate, their daily employment — all were at his behest. Why should anyone hate him?'
De Wolfe saw little logic in this reply, as the maxim 'The king is dead, long live the king' applied as much to manors as kingdoms. But he seized on one phrase.
'You said no one in the manor, Sir Odo. Does that imply that he may have had enemies outwith the village?'
Ralph broke in, jealous that his brother was hogging the discussion.
'Unlike me, Odo knows little of the tournament scene. Like our father before us, Hugo and I were devoted to that noble sport, where passions often run high. Competition and rivalry are rife, sometimes to the point of personal enmity.'
'We saw good evidence of that in Exeter last week,' drawled Joel mischievously. 'If that Frenchman de Charterai had been in this vicinity last night, I would withdraw my accusations against this slut Agnes.' John noticed that, although the Peverel family had been in England for well over a century, they still considered themselves to be Norman enough for a Frenchman to be a foreigner.
'There are a number of knights who have lost heavily to Hugo on the tourney field,' said Ralph. 'Some have lost sufficiently, both in pride and fortune, to wish him evil. But. I doubt they would come creeping into Sampford at night to stab him in the back!' There was nothing more to be learned from these autocratic brothers — John found that extracting information from them was like pulling teeth. Grudgingly, Odo agreed to have the ladies called down and a few moments later Avelina and Beatrice appeared, chaperoned by their shadowy tire-women. Of Ralph's wife there had been no sign, but the bailiff had told John earlier that she had been delivered of her third child only two weeks before and remained feverish and weak in the house behind the manor. The men rose and waited until the two ladies had been settled in their chairs, then took their places on the stools on either side, the brothers' body language displaying an aggressively protective attitude.
'Keep this short, Crowner,' growled Ralph, his handsome face set in a stony glare. 'Our ladies are distressed and fatigued by these unhappy events.'
In fact, they looked anything but distressed. Avelina sat upright, alert and almost combative, while the newly widowed Beatrice had donned her best blue silken kirtle and snowy wimple. She looked radiant as she glanced covertly at Joel, who was clearly entranced by her interest in him. John wondered how they had comported themselves when Hugo was alive, as surely this amorous relationship could not have blossomed in the last day. With an effort, he brought his mind back to the present.
'Mesdames, I will not detain you for long,' he said politely. Their full attention swung to him and both women felt a tug of interest as they surveyed this tall, muscular man with the face of a black hawk.
They knew of his reputation as a Crusader, an adventurer and a ladies' man. Awareness of his relationship with the Welsh tavern-keeper was not confined to Exeter, and with women's expert eyes they saw that his otherwise saturnine features were relieved by a pair of lips that betrayed his potentially passionate nature. Though Beatrice was too enamoured of Joel, Avelina was almost the same age as the coroner and could not resist a moment of imagination centred on the possibility of an affair with this man she had heard referred to as Black John.
She pulled herself together as she heard those same lips addressing her.
'Lady Avelina, can I trouble you to tell me anything you know of the sad demise of your stepson?' Her story was in essence the same as the others' and equally unhelpful. Hugo had still been in the hall when she retired to the solar upstairs.
'Father Patrick accompanied me as usual, to say with me my evening prayers for the soul of my late husband, taken from me so cruelly earlier this year,' she said.
'Then I went to my chamber where Florence prepared me for bed.'
She tipped her head towards the tall, silent girl who stood beside her chair.
'And you know of no one who might have hated Hugo sufficiently to want him dead?'
A flush rose slowly in her elegant cheeks. 'I will make no bones about it, Coroner. He was not a popular man. His villagers were afraid of his intemperate nature and his lusting after their younger womenfolk was deeply resented.'
There was a shuffling of feet among the brothers and Ralph opened his mouth to protest, then it snapped shut as he thought better of it. Considering this a good opportunity to try to prise more from this fractious family, John said, 'It has been suggested that Hugo may have made enemies among the tourneying fraternity persons such as Reginald de Charterai were mentioned.' At this, Avelina was transformed in an instant. From being a calm regal figure, she suddenly blazed into a furious temper. Her eyes widened and her face flushed as she half rose from her seat and slapped her hand imperiously on the edge of the table.