John sensed that he was getting on to ground that might prove harmful to de Ridefort, if the established Church had some antipathy to the Order of the Temple. He let the conversation slide into less dangerous topics, though he knew that the priest was still intrigued by his interest.
He spent an hour with de Alençon and when the wine flask was empty, the archdeacon walked him to the door of his narrow house. As they parted, the cleric’s last remark proved that he had not forgotten their earlier discussion.
‘Advise your friend, John, that he had better keep a good watch over his shoulder, if he has become at cross-purposes with the Poor Knights of Christ. They possess a very long arm indeed!’
When he arrived near his own house, de Wolfe saw Gwyn hovering in Martin’s Lane, talking to Andrew the farrier as he hammered a shoe on to a roan gelding. The Cornishman looked scruffier than usual, his tattered thick leather jerkin more frayed than ever and his serge breeches crumpled above his muddy boots. The only acceptable part of his outfit was the large scabbard that contained his broadsword, hanging from the diagonal baldric strap over his right shoulder.
‘Have you been at war while my back was turned?’ demanded the coroner as he approached his officer, whose flaming ginger hair and beard were as unkempt and tangled as if he had been through six blackthorn hedges.
Gwyn grinned amiably and patted the hilt of his sword. ‘There was a riot down in the Shambles just now – you can barely have missed it if you walked up from the Bush.’
‘Any work for us there? What was it all about?’ demanded his master.
‘One dead, two badly wounded,’ replied Gwyn. ‘One I injured myself, after he had killed the other fellow.’
De Wolfe was already striding off towards the meat market, which was on the other side of the cathedral Close. ‘Come on, man, tell me about it as we go.’
‘A group of men came into the city, driving a score of pigs. They set up a booth on Bell Hill, half-way up Southgate Street, and began killing a few hogs, offering the joints at a price lower than the Exeter traders’.’
‘They must have been fools – or desperate!’ said de Wolfe, as they hurried along. ‘It’s not even a market day! The local butchers wouldn’t stand for that.’
‘They didn’t – not for more than a few minutes. They started shouting at them, then overturning tables. The pigs were running wild, the traders were fighting and the customers were screaming in panic.’
‘What about the portreeves and burgesses? Where were they with their bailiffs?’
‘They soon arrived and it developed into a free-for-all. Then the cudgels came out and the knives, even a couple of old swords. It was bloody chaos!’
They hurried through Bear Lane and out into South Gate Street where the Serge Market lay slightly downhill from the Shambles, in the dip before the road rose again to the gate. There were plenty of people milling around, but no obvious fighting. ‘It’s gone quiet now,’ exclaimed Gwyn, in a disappointed tone. ‘All hell was let loose here half an hour ago.’
John de Wolfe pushed past a crowd of onlookers near an overturned stall to get to the middle of the road. He was carrying no sword, but kept a hand on the hilt of his dagger in case there was more trouble. Above the hubbub of chatter and complaint, he could hear a familiar voice shouting a few yards away. ‘Gabriel! What’s going on?’ he yelled, pushing through the crowd to reach the sergeant of the castle guard, who was shoving at the crowd with four other men-at-arms, clearing a space around some bodies on the fouled ground.
When John broke through, with Gwyn at his shoulder, he thought at first that there had been a massacre, as the mud was running with blood. ‘It’s not all from your customer, Crowner!’ the sergeant reassured him, his lined old face creasing into a grin. ‘Most of this is swine’s blood – though these human swine here have added a few pints!’
De Wolfe cursed as two terrified black pigs crashed against his legs, before careering off into the throng. He stepped into the squelching pink mud and looked down at a still corpse, then at two men groaning on the ground. One had blood pouring from a large gash in his scalp, the other was doubled up in pain, clutching his belly. From between his fingers, oozed an ominous dark red clot.
‘The dead ’un is a meat-hawker from Milk Street,’ announced Gabriel. ‘These other two are from the gang from the countryside.’
Gwyn bent over the man with the stomach wound. ‘I fixed this bastard,’ he said gruffly. ‘He was one who ran through the Exeter man.’
Gabriel and his men were gradually restoring order, pushing back the gawping crowd and getting some to restore the fallen booths. Here there was a disordered mixture of serge and worsted rolls, lamb and pork – much had ended up on the ground and urchins and dogs were playing with the meat. A few surreptitious looters were picking up joints and offal, trying to wipe away some of the mud before making off with their booty.
‘Where are the rest of the intruders?’ snapped de Wolfe.
‘I’ve got two of them pinioned over there, Crowner,’ answered Gabriel, motioning towards the nearest house. ‘The others have made a run for it. They’re far beyond the gate by now.’
John looked down at the dead and injured. ‘Better get the corpse taken to his home, if he’s a local.’
Gwyn nodded. ‘What about these other two?’
De Wolfe looked at the head wound on the first man. His hair was matted with blood, but the bleeding seemed to be slowing from the gash. He was sitting up, groaning, but conscious. ‘This one will live, unless the wound suppurates later. Gabriel, take him to the gaol down there at the South Gate. Illegal trading is a city problem, not one that concerns the king.’
‘I’m glad to hear you admit that, for once, John.’
Turning, de Wolfe saw the sheriff standing behind him, elegant in a short brown mantle over his long green tunic. He wore a close-fitting helmet of brown felt, tied under the chin, and his shoes were in the latest fashion, with long curled points at the toes.
De Wolfe pointed to the cadaver then moved his finger to the other man. ‘These are within my jurisdiction, Richard.’
‘But only one is dead, Coroner,’ said de Revelle sarcastically.
‘The other has a mortal wound,’ stated de Wolfe bluntly. After a score of years on many battlefields, he considered himself an authority on violent injuries. ‘He’s losing blood clots from his belly, so he’ll not last long. My officer put a sword into his vitals as he was killing this Exeter man.’
The victim about whom they were talking had slumped sideways and his face had taken on an ashen hue. A priest, a young vicar-choral from the cathedral, had pushed through the crowd and went to crouch by his side, cradling the dying man’s head on his lap. He pressed the small cross from a chain around his neck against the victim’s forehead and muttered a Latin absolution into now deaf ears.
‘No point in trying to take this one to the gaol, Crowner,’ said Gabriel, ‘but I’ll get the corpse moved and clap these other three in the gatehouse.’
‘You’d better get an apothecary to look at his wound. We don’t want him dying on us before he’s hanged,’ boomed a new voice. This came from a large warrior, with a forked grey beard, wearing a mailed hauberk and a round iron helmet. Ralph Morin, the castle constable, had come down with the sheriff and a dozen more soldiers to quell the disturbance. He took over from his sergeant and ordered the men-at-arms to get rid of the crowd. Grumbling and swearing, they dispersed gradually and the stalls were hoisted back into their places for trading to start again.