John digested this oblique compliment and made a somewhat grudging attempt at satisfying de Charterai.
'I am not acquainted with either the sheriff or the Coroner in Salisbury, but as soon as the opportunity arises I will raise the matter with them — though without any proof, I fail to see what can be done at this late stage.'
He rubbed a hand over his dark stubble as an aid to thought.
'However, the death of Hugo is very much my responsibility — at least, our sheriff here has made it so, in addition to my duties as coroner. I can assure you that the issues are very much in my mind. I arranging to interrogate further witnesses from Sampford Peverel and elsewhere.'
The French knight jerked his head in acknowledgment and suddenly stood up.
'I have taken enough of your time. Thank you for listening to me. I shall be lodging at the New Inn here in Exeter for a day or so, until I get word that a vessel is sailing from Topsham. If there is any news, let me know — otherwise, I will call upon you again when I return from Normandy in a few weeks' time.'
De Wolfe rose and saw him to his horse, which was tethered outside the guardroom, where Gwyn, Thomas and Gabriel were keeping out of the way. They looked curiously at the stiff-gaited Frenchman as he mounted and rode away. Gwyn, never one for the niceties of speech, spat on the ground.
'Miserable sod, that one! He'd likely crack his bloody face if he tried to smile.'
For once, John found no reason to disagree with his officer.
Chapter Ten
It was proving to be a busy day for Devonshire's coroner, measured by the number of visitors and interruptions. After Reginald de Charterai had left, John went back to his chamber and began struggling again with his reading lessons. Every time he felt he was making some progress, some crisis seemed to drive it all from his mind and he had to start afresh. He could now write his name tolerably well and recognise several dozen words in Latin, mainly those dealing with the legal matters that arose repeatedly in the Shire Court and in Thomas's inquest rolls. His progress was painfully slow, however, and he accepted that at his age he could never become really proficient.
For the moment, John was alone at the top of the gatehouse tower, with only the whistle of the breeze through the pointed window openings for company. Gwyn had gone to the soldiers' quarters in search of a drink and a game of dice, while Thomas had taken himself to the cathedral scriptorium, with the excuse that he must scrounge some more ink from the canon, who ground the best gall and soot pigment in the city. In reality, he wanted to let his feet tread the hallowed stones and boards of an ecclesiastical building, which was the nearest place to heaven that the little clerk could find on earth.
An hour passed and John began to fidget over his parchments, wishing that the noon bell of the cathedral would ring to release him and allow him to go home for his dinner, even though this meant facing Matilda in her present strange mood following her drunken episode. Just as his wandering attention settled on speculation as to what Mary might have cooked for the day's main meal, footsteps again sounded on the staircase outside. This time, there was no soldier to announce the visitor, as the face that poked through the sacking screen was that of a servant from the close. It was a pimply boy who worked as the bottler's assistant in the house of Canon John de Alençon, and he brought a message to the effect that his master the archdeacon would be obliged if the coroner could call upon him at his earliest convenience.
'Give him my compliments and tell him I will be with him very shortly!' commanded John, and as the boy scuttled away down the steps he rose to roll up his parchments with a sigh of relief and take his grey cape from a peg on the wall.
Outside, the October day had turned colder and grey clouds and wind warned of a grim autumn. The wet summer of that year had already provided a very poor harvest, and if winter turned out to be a hard one he feared that starvation would claim many before the next spring.
He walked briskly down Castle Hill to High Street and turned into Martin's Lane. He passed his own front door but refrained from going in, for fear that domestic problems would detain him from meeting his good friend the archdeacon. It was unusual for de Alençon, to send for him, and even the lure of Mary's cooking failed to divert him.
When he arrived at the tall house in Canon's Row, the continuation of Martin's Lane past the north side of the cathedral, a servant showed him straight into the spartan room that the canon used as his study. A table carrying several books, two stools and a large plain cross on the wall were the only furnishings that this austere priest allowed, a marked contrast to the lavish luxury enjoyed by many senior members of the cathedral establishment. But John de Alençon's face was anything but austere today, for he advanced on the Coroner with a beatific smile and sat him on one side of the table while he took the other stool. Almost immediately, his bottler, a skinny old man with a bulbous nose, entered with two glass goblets and a glazed pottery jar whose seal told de Wolfe that it was the very best quality Anjou wine.
'Why the celebration, John?' he asked his namesake. 'Is it your birthday or have they at last made you a bishop?'
'Neither, my friend, but I have some good news,' replied the archdeacon, his blue eyes twinkling in his thin face. 'Your clerk — my nephew — has at last been granted readmission to the clergy! I had a message from the chapter clerk of Winchester today, anouncing that Thomas de Peyne is to present himself there in seven weeks' time!'
The stolid coroner was incapable of tears, but he felt an unaccustomed prickling in his eyes for a moment as he thought of the joy that this would bring to his woebegone clerk. It was through de Alençon's intervention that the near-starving Thomas had been taken on by de Wolfe as his clerk, and they both held considerable affection for the little man, whose intellect and devotion more than compensated for his poor body and unprepossessing appearance.
'Does he know of this yet?' John asked, as they raised their goblets in celebration of this long-awaited event.
'It's little more than an hour since I had the message,' replied the archdeacon. 'I've no idea where he might be, which is partly why I sent for you, to discover his whereabouts. '
The matter was soon resolved, as the boy with the pimples was sent off at a trot to the cathedral archives above the chapter house, where the coroner rightly suspected he would be found, in his quest for ink.
Within a few minutes, Thomas appeared, rather apprehensive at the summons, especially when he found his master with his uncle, both of them wearing spuriously grim expressions.
'Oh God!' he gasped, the words being a genuine supplication rather than an oath. 'Please don't tell me that they have changed their minds!'
As he seemed on the point of fainting, the two Johns hurriedly dropped their charade and broke into smiles as they told Thomas the good news. Then he almost fainted again, falling to his knees and bursting into tears, rocking back and forth on the floor, crossing himself and blubbing prayers of thanks between his sobs. His uncle, more used to pastoral emotions than the discomfited coroner, laid a gentle hand on his head. De Wolfe took a spare wine cup from the table and filled it.