'The bailiff has got a terrible flux of his bowels, or he would be the one to come, sir. Our steward is in such a fevered state over his master's death that he could hardly sit a horse, so I was sent to fetch you.'
His story was that Peter le Calve, the lord of Shillingford, had gone hunting in his park the day before, accompanied only by his houndmaster and one of his adult sons.
'They had little sport, so the houndmaster said, until near to dusk, when the dogs raised a fallow deer in the woods. My lord and his son William split up, going off in different directions. And that's the last they saw of Sir Peter.'
The falconer related this with morbid fervour, and John had the impression that their lord was not all that popular with his subjects.
'So who found the corpse?' demanded Gwyn, riding on the other side of Alfred.
'Nobody, not last night! When he didn't come back nor answer to the horn, William broke off the chase and with the houndmaster began searching the woods. But it soon got dark and they had to give up and go back to the village for more men.'
'Couldn't the hounds have found him by scent?' asked John, who unusually among men of his class had little interest in hunting.
Alfred was scornful. 'Them bloody dogs is useless! Comes of having a drunk for houndmaster. They couldn't find a turd in a privy. The only smell they know is that of a deer or a fox.'
'So who discovered him — and when?' demanded de Wolfe, his patience wearing thin,
'When the master failed to come back after a couple of hours, we tried going into the woods with pitch brands, but it was useless, especially as it started to piss with rain, which put out our torches. By dawn, when he was still missing, the whole village was turned out to search.'
By now, the road was entering the dense woods that surrounded the village of Shillingford, and they had time only to learn from the falconer that it was the manor wheelwright who had made the ghastly discovery. On the bed of a stream that ran through the forest, Sir Peter le Calve was found lying on his back, in a state that was more graphically described by the wheelwright when they arrived at the village.
Shillingford was a relatively small manor, a series of strip fields, pasture and waste surrounding a cluster of houses, the church and an alehouse. It was encircled by dense woods, which were slowly being cut back by assarting to provide more land for cultivation and beasts. The hall was in the centre of the hamlet, an old wooden structure like that at Ringmore, set inside a wide circular bailey fenced off with a ditch and stockade. John de Wolfe knew the lord slightly, though le Calve was an older man. They had been campaigning in the Holy Land at the same period, but the coroner had not fought alongside him, and since John had returned home from Palestine their paths had not crossed. Indeed, John had heard that Peter was now something of a recluse and rarely left his manor, except to travel to his other possessions in Dorset. He knew that le Calve was a widower for the second time and had two grown-up sons, but that was the extent of his knowledge of the man, apart from the fact that Peter's father had also taken the Cross, back at the time of the so-called Second Crusade, well over forty years earlier.
As they rode into the village, dust and fallen leaves were blown up from the track by a cold easterly wind, as November had turned dry since they returned from Ringmore. The place looked miserable under a leaden sky and John shivered in spite of the weight of his riding cloak. The depressing atmosphere was not helped by the sight of sullen bondsmen standing by the gates of their crofts as the coroner rode past.
The village seemed to have come to a standstill with the loss of its lord, and there was an air of apprehension hanging over the place, as if the inhabitants were waiting to be blamed for this latest tragedy. The harvest had been bad and it needed a strong hand at the top if hunger was to be avoided during the winter that lay ahead, so the sudden death of their lord was an added uncertainty.
The falconer led them through the open gate of the manor-house bailey, where they found a score of people milling about uncertainly. Most were the servants belonging to the house and to the barton down the road, the farm that belonged directly to the lord to supply his needs. On the steps of the manor-house, a two-storeyed building with a shingled roof, a stooped old man waited for them, wringing his hands in nervous concern.
'I am Adam le Bel, Lord Peter's steward,' he quavered in a high-pitched voice. 'His sons are in the hall and wish to speak with you, sir.'
He led the way into a gloomy hall, made of ancient timbers that must have been felled when the first King Henry was on the throne. A large fire-pit lay in the centre, with a ring of logs like the spokes of a wheel smouldering on a heap of white ash. There were tables and benches set around it and at one of them a group of men sat with pots of ale. Two of them immediately got to their feet and advanced on the coroner. They were well dressed compared to the others in the hall, and John rightly took them to be the sons of the dead man.
'I am Godfrey le Calve and this is William,' said one, a tall, spare man of about thirty-five, touching his brother on the shoulder. William was a slightly younger version of Godfrey, otherwise they could have been taken for twins. Both had long chins and Roman noses, with brown hair shaved up the back and sides to leave a thick mop on top.
'This is a dreadful day, Sir John,' muttered William. 'Who could have done such a terrible thing?'
To John, his words echoed those uttered about the murdered ship's crew.
'My condolences, sirs. I knew your father only slightly, but there is always a bond between us old Crusaders. Where is his body now?'
'Left where it was found, Coroner,' said Godfrey, somewhat to de Wolfe's surprise. Though the victims of all sudden deaths were supposed to be undisturbed until the law officers examined them, in practice many were hurriedly moved, especially those in the upper ranks of society.
'In view of the grim circumstances, we thought it best to wait for your presence, Crowner,' added William. 'Being so close to Exeter avoids much delay.'
They marched out of the hall ahead of John and his officer. A ragged procession of steward, reeve, falconer and a man who turned out to be the wheelwright trailed after them. In the bailey, Godfrey turned and explained to de Wolfe that it was not worth mounting horses, as the distance was short and the terrain easier to navigate on foot.
More servants joined them as they took a path that passed the fields and then crossed the pasture and waste land to the edge of the trees. The ground was undulating, and a quarter of a mile into the wood there was a small valley with a sizeable stream running at the bottom. They scrambled down through a heavy fall of autumn leaves to a place where the brook ran over flat stones, some of the rocks projecting above the water.
'This is how I found the master, sir,' exclaimed the wheelwright, who had run ahead of them and was pointing upstream, where the rivulet made a sharp bend through the cut-away banks of red soil on either side. When John and his officer got down to the water's edge, they could see around the corner, and even their eyes, hardened by years of fatal injury and maiming in battle, were shocked by the sight.
Across some flat rocks, his feet in the running water, was the body of a man, lying on his back. His arms were outstretched, as they were lashed at the wrists to a fallen branch laid crossways underneath him. His neck ended at a bloody stump and through a tear down the front of his long tunic his entrails protruded on to his ripped belly.