Thomas, though always anxious to help, looked dubious. 'If it was said in the confessional, he would not divulge it even to me. It seems an unlikely path to follow, master.'
De Wolfe grunted his acceptance of his clerk's opinion and carried on with some questions, but they led nowhere. The brother of the dead man, a sallow fellow probably six years older than Simon, had little to offer.
'As our mother has said, my brother seemed distant in his mind when he returned from his voyage. And he had money, which was unusual.'
Simon's girlfriend, a plain pudding of a wench about sixteen years of age, was equally unhelpful. De Wolfe gained the impression that she was more a dog-like follower of the sailor than his choice of a future mate — which fitted with his ambition to one day enter holy orders.
Then John called the portreeve, mainly to justify his insistence that Elias Palmer must attend the inquest, but, apart from confirming his view of the body and the name of the cog and her master that Simon Makerel had sailed upon, it was a futile exercise.
After scowling around the blank faces of the jurors, he asked if anyone had anything they wished to say that might be relevant, but there was a stony silence. Then Luke de Casewold, to John's smouldering annoyance, spoke up in his harsh, piercing voice.
'Come, someone must know something! This is a small port. Everyone always knows each other's business.' He smacked his palms together, like a schoolmaster warning his pupils. 'Speak up, or it will go badly with you!'
His threatening exhortation fell on deaf ears.
Though there was some muted grumbling and men looked sullenly at each other, no one volunteered a single word. The coroner, though regretting the lack of any progress, was secretly pleased that this interloper's brashness had failed so abjectly.
The last act in this fruitless performance was the exhibition of the body to the jury, which was demanded by the law. Gwyn pulled down the sheet that covered the head and neck, and the score of village men and mariners filed past, as de Wolfe pointed out the marks on the neck, which had become more livid and prominent with the passage of time.
'There seems nothing more to be said, then,' he concluded. 'No verdict can be reached on such thin evidence, so this inquest is adjourned until some later day. That will probably depend upon when the vessel, The Tiger, returns to this harbour.'
He stopped and cleared his throat as he looked at the grieving mother. 'In the meantime, the body of Simon Makerel may be restored to his family for burial.'
Gwyn stood and bellowed out that 'all good men may now depart and take their ease', and the crowd melted away, a substantial proportion going in the direction of the Harbour Inn and other alehouses.
Thomas packed away his writing materials into the capacious shoulder bag that he always carried, and the coroner's trio prepared to ride back to Exeter.
'We'll take food in the next village,' rumbled John as they collected their horses from the stables of the tavern. 'The sooner I'm out of this place, the better I'll be suited.'
He grunted a farewell to the bailiff and portreeve, who seemed indifferent to whether he stayed or not. The Keeper was a little more outgoing at their departure and came up to John's side as he settled himself carefully in Odin' s saddle so as to minimise the soreness of his backside. The boil had subsided a little, but it still gave him considerable discomfort.
'Sir John, it was a pleasure to work with you,' brayed de Casewold. 'I look forward to meeting you again when you return to hold the full inquest. I will keep you informed about the return of that cog and her crew.'
The coroner scowled at him. 'I have already charged the bailiff with that task,' he snapped ungraciously. 'About time the damned fellow did his duty. I'll be having words with the sheriff about his lack of enthusiasm for his job!'
Luke gave a wide smile. It was clear that there was animosity between him and Edward Northcote. 'I will keep my ear to the ground, coroner. There is something going on under the surface in this town and I'll not rest until I get to the bottom of it!'
Though he disliked the Keeper, John felt a little uneasy at the prospect of one lone man meddling too deeply in a place where there seemed to be a tyrant in charge. 'Take care how you proceed. I don't want to visit here again to deal with another corpse!' he advised.
De Casewold sniggered through his little rosebud of a mouth. He tapped the hilt of his sword. 'I can look after myself, thank you. Keeping the peace was the task our royal master gave me and I'll carry it out regardless of peril!'
With these brave words, he strutted away with a final wave to the brooding figure on the massive grey stallion.
They reached Exeter late in the afternoon, and de Wolfe was heartily thankful to see the great twin towers of the cathedral rising above the walls as they approached. His buttock and left leg ached from the long ride, and he resolved to visit an apothecary the next day if the boil did not improve considerably overnight. Gwyn left them outside the East Gate to go to his cottage in St Sidwell's, while Thomas continued to jog behind the coroner into the city. They rode along High Street until they reached Martin's Lane, a narrow alley that was one of the many entrances into the cathedral Close. Here, John bade him a gruff farewell as the little clerk carried on to the lower town, where he shared a room with a vicar-choral at a lodging in Priest Street.
With a sigh, de Wolfe hauled Odin's head around into the lane and rode the few yards to the livery stable where his lumbering horse had his home. After delivering the animal to Andrew the farrier, John crossed to his house opposite, one of two high, narrow buildings that stood in the short alley. Built of timber, its front was blank apart from a small shuttered window and a heavy front door. He pushed this open and entered a small vestibule, where boots and cloaks were discarded. On the left, a passage ran around the side of the house to the back yard, and on the right was another door that led into the hall, which occupied most of the building.
As he lowered himself gingerly on to a bench to pull off his riding boots, there was a patter of feet and a large brown dog appeared from the passage to greet him with a wagging tail and a lolling wet tongue. As he fondled the ears of his old hound Brutus, other footsteps approached and his cook-maid Mary came into the vestibule. A handsome dark-haired woman in her late twenties, she now stood with her hands on her hips, regarding her master with an assumed severity that masked her concern.
'How's your arse now, Sir Coroner?' she demanded bluntly.
'A kiss would improve it, no doubt,' he replied, standing up and pushing his feet into a pair of soft house shoes. He stepped towards her, obviously intending to put his words into deeds, but the maid moved back and jerked a warning thumb towards the door into the hall.
'She's in there and in a strange mood, so tread carefully! '
John groaned. 'My dear wife is always in a strange mood. What's the trouble this time?'
Mary picked up his riding boots to take them away to clean off the mud. 'Her brother called today, the first time we've seen him since he slunk off in disgrace. There was a lot of shouting and he left in a temper.'
Richard de Revelle, his brother-in-law, had been sheriff of Devon until the previous year, when largely at John's instigation he had been ejected by the king's judges for malpractice and suspected treachery. He had been in further trouble since then and had been lying low in one of his distant manors, so John was surprised to hear that he had appeared again in Exeter, though he had recently bought a town house in Northgate Street.
'I'll bring you a meal within the hour, then afterwards you had better let me attend to that boil of yours,' declared Mary.