'I hope to God that this is the last we see of Hugo Peverel,' he muttered, half to himself, as he walked close beside the coroner. De Wolfe took the chance to sound him out a little further, as they moved with the tail-end of the crowd towards the church.
'I heard that the deceased caused some distress to your family?' he asked quietly.
'That's putting it very lightly, Crowner. My poor wife cried for days, to say nothing of my sweet daughter Maud. It affected not only our family, but that of Nicholas the smith, father of my son-in-law — who almost failed to remain my son-in-law, after what that bastard Hugo did to his bride.'
John looked behind him, to make sure that only Gwyn and Thomas were within earshot.
'It was totally illegal, Reeve, you know that? There is no such thing as droit de seigneur in the eyes of the law.'
Fishacre gave a bitter laugh. 'The eyes of the law are tightly closed in this manor, sir! What could we do? We are not only bondsmen, but cottars, the lowest of the low. These Peverels have the power of life and death over us, either by the gallows or by starvation if we do not bend to their will.'
'But lords have obligations, not least to keep to the traditions of the manor, as voiced in the manor courts,' reasoned John.
This only brought forth another sardonic response from Warin Fishacre. 'Tradition and the law count for nothing when there is no one to enforce them, sir.
Matters may be different near Exeter, but here we never see a law officer from one year to the next. And the last sheriff, he was so thick with the Peverels that they could have hanged the lot of us without him turning a hair.'
De Wolfe had no answer to that, but wryly thought that the new sheriff was also unlikely ever to show his face here, as long as he had a coroner to do his work for him.
By the time they reached the church, the body had been taken inside, now wrapped in a new linen shroud.
The men of the manor had all filed into the small building and the women and children congregated outside, either in the churchyard or along the wall that separated it from the roadway. He saw that the armourer, Robert Longus, and another rough-looking man were standing at the door to check that every man, including all youths above the age of twelve, was attending to do respectful homage to their late lord.
As John walked down from the lych-gate, he murmured to the reeve.
'Did they do this yesterday, when the illegal burial took place?'
Warin Fishacre shook his head. 'It was a rushed affair, Crowner. I think the old sheriff, de Revelle, talked them into it in a hurry. Only the brothers and the senior manor officers were present. They are trying to make up for it today, though they had said they would have a big memorial service in the future, when the new church is built — if that ever comes to pass!' As de Wolfe was well aware that he was in bad odour with the Peverel family, he stood unobtrusively at the back of the crowded church, which was crammed full with the men of the manor, most looking sour and resentful. As was customary, none of the women of the family was present, but from his viewpoint he could see that the brothers, Richard de Revelle, the steward, bailiff, falconer, houndmaster and other more senior members of the household were grouped behind the bier, on the other side of which Father Patrick was again mumbling the words of the burial service.
Gwyn stuck close beside his master at the back, but Thomas, never one to miss the opportunity to attend any devotional event, wormed his way through the packed congregation until he was almost at the front.
As the muttered words of the priest droned on, lightened by the splashing of holy water on the corpse, John studied the atmosphere in the church. Though admittedly a funeral service was not an occasion for high spirits, he sensed a sullen mood among the massed villagers. He felt that they were there only because they had been ordered to attend, rather than from any feeling of respect or obligation to their late master. He decided that the reason that the thuggish armourer and his mate were outside the porch was to ensure that there were no absentees, and he would not have been surprised to learn that Longus had sent men to scour the village for skulking backsliders.
The Irish-accented Latin of the parish priest came Io an end and a general shuffling at the front heralded the end of the proceedings. John beckoned to Gwyn and they left the church ahead of the rest and went to stand against the inside of the churchyard wall, a few yards from the open grave which still held the empty coffin. Behind them, the women and children gaped and whispered over the wall as the procession emerged from the porch. The men had squeezed themselves aside to allow the bier to be brought out first, preceded by Father Patrick, who slowly marched ahead along the grassy path between old grave mounds, holding aloft the cross from the altar as he quavered incomprehensible chants.
The corpse, swathed in its white bindings, was carried on the bier by two of the bailiff's assistants, and behind them came the Peverel men, de Revelle and then the manor officials. John managed to conceal a grin as he saw that immediately after them came Thomas de Peyne, who had insinuated himself into the procession and with his faded black tunic and persistent tonsure looked like an additional priest as he crossed himself and mouthed the Latin texts far more faithfully than the Irishman up ahead.
At the graveside, the sexton and another helper got down into the pit and took the corpse, which was handed down by the pall-bearers, as the family and their retainers stood at the head of the grave. Once the body was back in the planked box, they hammered home the nails of the lid and clambered out again. Now the men of the manor, directed by the armourer and his henchman, filed slowly past the open pit. Obviously acting on prior orders, each stooped to take a handful of soil from the heap alongside to throw down on to the coffin. Again the watching coroner had the firm impression that they did this sullenly and with bad grace, driven to the gesture only under the watchful eyes of the armourer and the family.
Each fistful of earth landed on the coffin with a dull 'thunk'. Some of the impacts seemed much louder than others, as if the thrower were expressing his feelings with unnecessary violence — though John's keen ears noticed that several times the opposite occurred, as if the reluctant mourner were merely miming the action.
When the last of the villagers had paraded past, they began melting away, some making for the lych-gate, others to another gap in the wall behind the church, leaving behind only the Peverels and their attendants.
Suddenly there was a roar of anger from Robert Longus, who had moved up to the grave and was peering in.
'Stop! All of you men, stop and come back here!' he yelled. The brothers, who were talking in low voices with de Revelle and their steward, were a few yards away and immediately hurried over to where the armourer was standing, gesticulating with a forefinger into the pit.
'Who did this? Own up, damn you!' he shouted generally to the rapidly thinning crowd in the churchyard. De Wolfe and his officer, sensing some new drama, also threaded their way between the grassy mounds to the new grave and joined the others as they peered down into the four-foot hole.
Among the scattered red earth on the coffin lid, they saw a large pat of dried ox dung and a dead rat, swollen with putrefaction far more than the body inside the box.
'Get those abominations out of there!' screeched Ralph Peverel, grabbing the nearby sexton by the shoulder and almost pushing him down into the grave-pit.
As the man scrabbled to retrieve the offending objects, John realised why several of the farewell offerings had made so little noise, but he could not recall who was passing the grave at that moment — and he hoped that the others would also fail to identify the culprits.