Thebaud fell to his knees and began to blubber for mercy, but no one took any notice of him: they were too familiar with such supplications from the condemned.
The clerk moved on to the second case, a sullen young Saxon with yellow hair hanging down his back. ‘Britric of Totnes, you were apprehended in the Serge Market trying to pass off clipped short-cross pennies. In your lodgings, the city bailiff found a bag of clippings and iron shears for trimming the coins.’
The irregular silver pennies were of many types as some had been in circulation for a century or more from different mints around the country. Clipping the edges and melting down the silver for its value was a common but serious crime. Most coins had a cross on one side, and in later mintings, the arms of the cross were made longer, reaching to the edge in an effort to make clipping more obvious. Counterfeiting money was a hanging offence, but passing clipped coins was almost as heinous.
Britric seemed unmoved by this accusation and the clerk moved on to the last culprit, a shifty-looking youth with crooked, projecting teeth. ‘William Pagnell, you were convicted of associating with known thieves who haunted the fair of St Jude two weeks ago. Three other men made off with goods to at least the value of five marks from various booths, but you were the only one caught. As the stolen goods, a candlestick found on your person, was of the value of only ninepence, you have avoided hanging on that charge.’
The clerk’s droning voice was interrupted by the coroner. ‘Is this the fellow who wants to turn approver?’
‘Yes, Crowner. If the others are caught and confirm that this Pagnell was equally one of them, then they may all hang, whether he has his hand struck off now or not.’
Pagnell joined his fellow prisoner on his knees in the damp earth, his chains rattling as he wagged his clasped hands in supplication to de Wolfe. ‘Sir Crowner, I wish to confess my small guilt and earn your mercy by confessing the names of these other men who led me astray,’ he whined.
The distant bell of the cathedral tolled faintly in the distance and Richard de Revelle slapped his gloves in impatience. ‘Come on, clerk, get on with it. I have more important work to do.’
The pompous official turned to the coroner with a questioning look. ‘Will you accept him as an approver, Crowner?’
‘Yes, if it means that by his confession we can catch the greater thieves,’ he grunted.
Pagnell gabbled his thanks then ventured a little further. ‘And if I confess every syllable I know and make promises in the name of the Holy Mother and every saint never to trangress again, may I keep my limb? Without it, I and my family will starve, for I am a wood-carver. I have had no work for two months and I only took that trinket to buy bread for my children.’
Richard de Revelle gave an exasperated snort. ‘Every evil wretch that comes here spins the same lying excuses and promises to reform, only to steal or slay the moment he is released.’
As much to confound and aggravate his brother-in-law as from any feeling of compassion, de Wolfe gestured at the guards and the gaoler. ‘Take him back to his cell. I’ll hear his confession and then decide on what is to be done with him.’
‘What right have you to interfere with the decision of my County Court, Crowner?’ snapped the sheriff.
‘The duty to take confessions of approvers was laid on me by the Article of Assize last year,’ retorted de Wolfe, glaring across at de Revelle. ‘And maybe you remember that that Article was promulgated by the royal justices – the judges of our lord king!’
With a barely concealed grin at his master’s loss of face, Gabriel gave the order for one of the guards to take the prisoner away and when Stigand had slouched back to stand near his fire, the grisly proceedings went ahead. They were rapid and efficient, with none of the ceremony that attended an execution. Two men-at-arms grabbed the blond Saxon and one unlocked his arm fetters with a crude iron key. The obese gaoler rolled a large log across the floor, stained an ominous ruddy-brown, and set it on end to form a block about two feet high. The victim was forced to his knees, Stigand grabbed his right hand and pulled it across the block. Reaching for a cleaver, he spat upon the blade and sent it whistling down to sever the wrist with one blow.
In spite of his previous impassive mien, Britric gave a high-pitched scream and fainted as the arteries in his arm spurted across the block, the hand falling to the muddy floor. Wheezing with the effort of delivering the blow, the gaoler pulled a rag from the wide pocket of his soiled leather apron and slapped it over the end of the wrist to staunch the haemorrhage temporarily. The Saxon had fallen to the floor, but one of the soldiers held up his arm, whilst Stigand turned to the pot of tar on the fire. He stirred it with a piece of stick, which he then used to lift a large dollop of the sticky brown mess. Pulling away the cloth, he slapped the tar on the raw flesh and bare bone ends, spreading it over the stump, where it rapidly set solid as it cooled. Then he picked up the hand nonchalantly by its thumb and threw it on to his fire where, as it hissed and blackened, the fingers contracted to form one last agonal fist.
The official party watched all this indifferently, with the exception of Thomas de Peyne, who although he had seen it many times since entering the coroner’s service, still felt nauseated at the sight of blood and the severed hand being so casually treated.
Two soldiers dragged Britric back through the iron gate and came back to repeat the performance on the whimpering butcher, Robert Thebaud, who began screaming as his chains were released and did not stop until he was hauled back to his cell.
Anxious to be off to his chamber, Richard de Revelle started for the doorway but, almost as an afterthought, turned to speak to de Wolfe. ‘The expedition to Lundy is arranged for Monday, John. We shall leave at dawn and hope to get to Barnstaple that night.’ With a last flourish of his gloves, he vanished about his business, with his constable following reluctantly behind, leaving the coroner to enter the gaol, where the thief’s confession could hardly be heard above the screams and moans of the two mutilated men.
An hour later, de Wolfe made the climb up to his chamber in the gatehouse and joined Gwyn and Thomas in their customary bread, cheese and cider.
Thomas had nothing new to report about the Italian abbot from his eavesdropping in the cathedral precinct. Cosimo had not visited the bishop again and he had no means of knowing if he had yet returned to St James’s Priory.
‘What about you, Gwyn?’ growled de Wolfe. ‘Did the taverns provide any more news than the cathedral?’
Before replying, his officer peeled a strip of hard green rind from his cheese with his dagger. ‘Not a lot, Crowner. You said your wife already told you the names of these other two Templars. I went to a couple of low alehouses in Bretayne last night and spoke to an ostler and a porter from St Nicholas’s. It seems the leader of the three is this Roland de Ver, who comes from the New Temple in London, though before that he was in Paris. He has reddish hair and beard, says the porter, but little else is known of him.’
‘What of the others? One is that Godfrey Capra, whom we saw at Gisors when the great aggravation took place between Prince Richard and that bastard French king!’
‘I just recall him. He was a thin, dark fellow, with a sour face. He was born in Kent, I was told – he never went to Palestine with us.’ He bit off a chunk of his rock-hard cheese and champed on it. ‘The other one we both know of is this Brian de Falaise. The ostler said he also came from the Templar Commandery in London, though he is really from Normandy.’
Thomas had been listening quietly to this from his stool at the table, where he was writing out a précis of the approver’s confession that John had so recently heard in Stigand’s foul prison. ‘When I was in Winchester, there was a priest in the train of the Bishop of Rouen who had been at Gisors at this meeting in ’eighty-eight that you keep talking about. He told me that though it was mainly a political wrangling between old King Henry and Philip of France, something else went on there that affected the Templars.’