De Wolfe sighed. He was in no mood for a fight: he was tired and hungry. ‘It’s a long ride from Ilfracombe, in under a day and a half,’ he muttered.
‘You’re a fool to attempt it, with that leg,’ she retorted illogically. After complaining about the length of his absence, she was now implying that he should have stayed longer on the way back.
John ignored this and, sinking on to a bench at the empty table, gave a great yell for Mary. She had already heard him returning and soon bustled in with a wooden bowl of broth and a small loaf, which she put in front of him with a broad wink.
‘Get that down you, master. I’ll bring some salt fish and turnips afterwards.’
Brutus had ambled in after her and now sat between the coroner’s knees under the table, with his big brown head on John’s lap, waiting for some titbits of bread soaked in ham broth.
Matilda’s brief conversation had dried up and now she studiedly ignored her husband. It suited him to have some peace, at least until he had finished the food that Mary brought in relays, including a jug of hot spiced wine.
Afterwards, he limped to the fireside and dropped into the other cowled chair, but his leg had stiffened up and was crying out for exercise. He decided that he would best get that by walking down to the Bush to see Nesta. However, he felt that he should try to smooth over relations with Matilda before he left her again.
His first efforts, telling her of the events in Ilfracombe, were met with curt derision. ‘All that way to see a dead shipman and a half-drowned Breton! What business is that of a coroner? You should leave such petty matters to the bailiffs.’ Matilda’s ideas of the duties of a county coroner were modelled on those of her brother, who sat comfortably in his chamber and gave orders to minions whilst enjoying the social status of a senior law officer and administrator. Richard de Revelle was not a ‘hands-on’ person like de Wolfe; he was an aspiring politician – or had been until he had burnt his fingers over his support for Prince John’s rebellion.
Tonight de Wolfe could not bring himself to argue the matter – he was tired of the old controversy, which seemed to be building up again after the respite that his accident and her grudging nursing care had provided. For the past two months, Matilda had been single-minded in her determination to bring him back to health and activity. She had held her tongue about his many faults and, though uncommunicative on anything other than his welfare, she had avoided any censure of his affairs with other women. Now, though, there were signs that the truce was over and that Matilda was slipping back to her old self.
He doggedly changed the subject in an effort to coax her out of her sulk, telling her of the curious persistence of the man who peered at him around corners. Thankfully he found that, for some reason, this tale seemed to catch her attention. ‘Surely you can recollect the face?’ she asked. ‘You’ve not so many friends that his is lost in the crowd!’
Ignoring the gibe, he said, ‘It’s been niggling at my mind for a couple of days – and nights, when I can’t sleep. There’s something familiar about his features but for the life of me I can’t put a name to him.’
‘No doubt it’s some old drinking crony – or a bloodthirsty acquaintance from your years of slaughter on the battlefield. But why should he not approach you?’
De Wolfe scowled into the glowing fire, his mind’s eye seeing the mysterious fellow’s face once again. ‘I can’t imagine what he can be up to – but if he appears once more, Gwyn will get him. He’s to keep a special watch for the man. He only appears within the city, so he can’t vanish over the horizon.’
The subject was soon exhausted and, as John had hoped, Matilda shortly left the growing darkness of the hall to go up to her solar, where Lucille would brush her hair and get her dressed for bed. As soon as she had gone, he left the house and, with Brutus sniffing contentedly at his heels, made his way slowly down to his favourite tavern to see his favourite woman.
Early next morning, the coroner decided to call upon the sheriff to tell him of the situation in the north of the county. Soon after a dawn breakfast, he walked up to Rougemont, giving his aching leg every chance to strengthen itself with more exercise. He called first at the cubbyhole in the undercroft, where Gwyn and Thomas were squeezed into a space a quarter the size of their usual chamber in the gatehouse. The Cornishman grumbled at the cold dampness of the room, caused by the wet sheen on the inner wall, whose stones were covered with green mould. Thomas was crushed against a side wall, trying to write on his rolls at their trestle table, which now half filled the tiny space.
‘When I return, Gwyn, I want you to follow me into the town at a few paces distance,’ de Wolfe commanded. ‘If this accursed fellow appears, catch him and discover what he wants. Put your dagger to his throat, if needs be!’ With this harsh admonition, the coroner stumped up the few stone steps to the churned turf of the inner ward and walked around the corner to the wooden stairway that gave entrance to the keep.
A few moments later, he pushed open the door to de Revelle’s chamber and marched in without warning. This time, the sheriff was not at his table signing documents, but was standing, with his back to de Wolfe, in a small alcove at the further end of the room. A curtain hung on a pole across the entrance to offer some rudimentary privacy but it was pulled back to reveal his brother-in-law relieving himself down a stone shaft built into the thickness of the wall. This came out at the foot of the keep, adding further ordure to the mess in the inner ward.
Hearing footsteps, the sheriff dropped the front of his tunic and spat down the hole in front of him. ‘Can’t I even use the garde-robe without someone bursting in without a by-your-leave?’ he snarled, without turning round.
‘Don’t worry, Richard, I’ve seen men having a piss before now,’ grunted de Wolfe. ‘When you’ve emptied your bladder, I’ll give you some news that might interest you.’
De Revelle spun round, shaking the folds of his green robe back into place. ‘It’s you, John. I might have guessed that only you would barge in here unheralded. What news is this?’
He went to the table and settled himself behind it in his chair, his small, pointed beard jutting forward as if to defy de Wolfe to deliver anything that might be of the slightest import to him.
The coroner leaned on the other side of the table, his knuckles on the oak boards, hunched forward so that his big hooked nose was aimed at the sheriff like a lance. ‘Piracy, that’s the news! Murder and theft against the king’s peace up on the coast around Ilfracombe.’ He deliberately emphasised ‘the king’s peace’: ever since he had been appointed last September, there had been a running battle between the coroner and sheriff about the prosecution of serious crimes. Now, after he had described the events of his visit to Ilfracombe, he bluntly demanded of de Revelle some action against the pirates. ‘It’s your county, as far as law and order are concerned,’ he boomed. ‘I’m charged with dealing with wrecks and dead bodies, but you are the king’s representative here and it’s up to you to keep his peace.’ Again he emphasised the king, as a reminder that it was the Lionheart who was the sheriff’s raison d’être and that he had better be single-minded about that fact.
But, typically, de Revelle tried to wriggle out of his responsibilities. ‘I’m sheriff of the county of Devon, not of all the bloody sea around its coasts!’ he blustered. ‘Let the king’s navy deal with any pirates.’
The lean, black form of the coroner bent even closer to the dandyish figure, who backed away slightly. ‘When they murder subjects of the king and loot ships from one of his major cities, that’s business for the enforcers of law in this or any other county!’ he barked. ‘Unless you have decided not to uphold the peace of your sovereign, King Richard?’ This was a thinly veiled reminder that the sheriff’s tenure of office depended on his behaviour, as far as loyalists were concerned – men like Lord Guy Ferrars and Reginald de Courcy, as well as de Wolfe himself.