'Anything to show where it came from?' asked John, though well aware that no one there could read, even if there had been a name carved into the flimsy woodwork. Gwyn peered around the inside of the elongated cockleshell and shrugged. 'Only a sort of picture cut into the for'rad thwart,' he announced.
The coroner pushed forward and looked down at the first of the light planks that braced the curragh from side to side and provided seats for the rowers. In the centre was a crude carving, made with a knife. It was hard to make out at first, but when his eye became more attuned he saw a simple female figure with a wide ring around its head. Underneath was an angular squiggle that, thanks to the patient efforts of both Thomas and a vicar at the cathedral, John was able to recognise as a letter of the alphabet.
'It's a picture of the Virgin!' he declared with a hint of pride at his literacy. 'With the letter 'M' for Mary under it. So it's definitely from Thorgils' vessel.'
The bailiff and the reeve looked glum at this, for it meant that their village would lose the use of the curragh before long, but they said nothing and waited for the coroner's next demand.
'The cargo from the boat — I trust it has been kept safe?'
Vado nodded, but looked a little uneasy. 'All in the tithe barn, Crowner. '
'And all intact, I trust?'
'Two of the kegs were damaged, sir. Brandy-wine began to leak from one, so we did what we could to save some of it in jugs and pitchers. The top of another containing some sort of dried fruit was stove in and spoilt by sea water.'
John covered up a grin with some face-rubbing and throat-clearing, as he guessed that all the French fruit and some of the wine had vanished into various tofts in the village. He did not begrudge this small loss, as it must have been a bitter disappointment to Ringmore when a law officer turned up to deprive them of the windfall that a wreck usually provided.
'I'll inspect what's left in the morning. Make sure no more goes astray, bailiff,' he warned.
Vado, happy that the matter was not being pursued further, led them back up the valley in the fading light. The steep track was deserted, and John asked whether there had been any sightings of strangers since the shipwreck.
'You said that the curragh was pulled up on Aymer Cove, your other beach to the west,' he growled. 'Whoever came ashore in it must have passed damned near your village.'
The bailiff shook his head, worried that he was being of little help to this powerful official. 'No one we don't know, sir. In these out-of-the-way parts, we get to know every move our neighbours make. Isn't that so, Osbert?'
The reeve, who was walking alongside their horses, bobbed his head energetically. 'Haven't seen a stranger these past three-month — and that was only a chapman selling his buttons and needles to the womenfolk.'
He paused to hawk and spit into the bushes. 'Richard the Saddler said he saw four monks on the road to Bigbury some time ago, but there's naught sinister about that. They were going to St Anne's Chapel, no doubt.'
De Wolfe looked across at Gwyn, who was riding alongside him.
'Haven't we heard that before somewhere?'
His officer nodded his hairy head. 'That old man in Chillingford had the same story, only there were three, not four. But the damned county is awash with priests and monks.'
The coroner turned back to the reeve. 'Did this saddler say what colour these brothers wore?'
'They were black monks, he said. He didn't get a close look at them.'
'Where is this St Anne's Chapel?'
The bailiff answered. 'About a mile inland, Crowner. It guards a holy well. No proper village, just a few crofts. The road turns back to Bigbury from there.'
De Wolfe pondered for a moment. 'So why would monks be going to this chapel from the direction of the sea? Surely they'd be coming from inland, if they journeyed from Buckfast or some other Benedictine house?'
William looked blankly at him and shrugged. 'That I can't tell you, sir. It does seem odd, looking back on it. Maybe the parson has an answer — he's the only one who knows about priests and suchlike.'
John doubted he would get much help from the surly parish priest, but he stored the information away in his head for further deliberation. They reached the manorhouse, and in spite of his earlier reticence the bailiff organised a good meal of fresh sea-fish fried in butter, with cabbage and turnips. A large jug of strong fortified wine was produced, presumably rescued from the allegedly fractured cask, and by a couple of hours after dark the coroner and his henchman were comfortably drunk and ready to lie down on their hay-bags around the smouldering fire in the hall.
The rest of the Mary's cargo seemed intact when John surveyed it in the barn the next morning, so his next task was to speak to Richard Saddler, who they found sitting on a stool outside his dwelling next to the alehouse, boring holes in a sheet of thick leather with an awl. The coroner questioned him about the four monks he had seen, but learned little more except that it was about the time that the Dawlish vessel would have been lost. Time and date meant little to the inhabitants of rural villages; they were marked only by dawn and dusk, the Sabbath and saints' days. However, the finding of the curragh and the bodies on the beach provided a memorable marker in the humdrum life of Ring more and the saddler was definite that he had seen the robed and cowled figures two days before that.
'We must enquire at this chapel place, in case other people have had sight of them,' he told Gwyn as they trotted out of the village an hour later. As expected, the surly Father Walter had been as unhelpful as usual when they called at the church, gruffly saying that he knew nothing of any monks passing through the neighbourhood. Now the reeve was guiding them up to St Anne's chapel and then across to the estuary of the Avon to look at the Mary and Child Jesus.
They climbed gradually up on to an undulating plateau, the strip-fields around Ringmore giving way to heathland and scattered woods until the track joined another which came north from Bigbury, a village a mile to their right, on the edge of dense forest. At the junction was a small chapel, a square room ten paces long, made of wattle plastered with cob, under a thatched roof. Across the track and down a short lane between scrubby oaks was an enclosed well, which, according to Osbert, was reputed to have curative powers, especially for the eyes.
'Is there anyone we can ask about these alleged travelling monks?' demanded John. The reeve slid from the horse he had borrowed from the bailiff and went into the chapel, returning with a bow-legged old man in a ragged tunic, his hair as wild as Gwyn's.
'This is the fellow who looks after the well and the chapel,' said Osbert. 'He lives off the ha'pennies that pilgrims throw into the well as thank-offerings.'
When the coroner asked whether he had seen four monks in the past couple of weeks, the man surprised John by nodding his head vigorously.
'Can't recall when, but it was less than a couple of Sundays past,' he wheezed.
'They came to pray in your chapel or visit the well?' asked John.
'No, walked right past, sir, turned down Bigbury way.'
When the coroner tried to get some better description, the old fellow pointed to his red-rimmed eyes, which John now saw were milky with cataracts. 'I can only just make out shapes with these poor things, sir. Dark robes and cowls, that's all I could see.'
There was no more to be gleaned from the guardian of the well, and they rode off again, de Wolfe thoughtful as he weighed up what little information they had.
'Is there anything to attract monks to this Bigbury place?' he asked.
Osbert was scornful. 'If you think Ringmore is of little account, sir, wait until you see Bigbury! Nothing there except a church, an alehouse and a handful of crofts. They say it was once bigger, but was hit by a pestilence long ago. It doesn't belong to the same manor as Ringmore, it's on Prince John's land, though it's leased to Giffard at Aveton.'