'Probably was lived in by some free tradesman from the village,' observed de Casewold. 'Long abandoned, by the looks of it. Perhaps he died without sons.' The mouldy thatch had caved in in places, causing one end wall to partly collapse, where the rain had dissolved the cob, a mixture of clay, straw and manure. The Keeper pointed to fresh-looking ruts that led in from the road to the side of the cottage, and de
Wolfe saw for himself the ox-droppings on the rough grass nearby.
'Where's this pack of his?' he grunted.
'I left it inside. We can have a look around — perhaps they left something.'
What they had left were the ashes of a recent fire and a stink of urine. The three investigators got in by pushing down a decrepit door whose leather hinges had rotted through. Thomas pointed to a crust of bread on the floor.
'That can't have been there long, otherwise rats and mice would have devoured it.'
The pack belonging to Setricus Segar did not detain them long. It was a poor haversack of canvas, containing several leather rolls with pins and needles, a bundle of faded ribbons and some folded lengths of woollen and serge cloth.
'We are little the wiser, Keeper,' observed de Wolfe as they came back out into the sunlight. 'Does no one in Honiton know of this mysterious cart that travels by night?'
Luke shrugged. 'Those who know, won't tell! And when the cart appears by daylight, who is to mark it from a score of others that ply up and down the roads every day? This is the direct track from Axminster to Honiton and Exeter.'
As they jogged back towards the village, the coroner persisted in questioning Luke about his conviction that Axmouth was involved. 'Why do you think that they are shifting illegal merchandise from there?' he asked. 'No doubt most ports try to evade some of the duty due to the Exchequer, but is Axmouth any different from the rest?'
The Keeper looked slyly across at John. 'I'm sure that it's more than just dodging the tally-man now and then — though I know he's as bent as a shepherd's crook. I feel it in my bones that there are people with blood on their hands involved in some of this trade — and both this hawker and the lad from that cog were silenced to keep their mouths shut.'
Further questioning produced nothing in the way of proof, but de Casewold seemed adamant that some nefarious business was being run from the port on the estuary of the Axe. John wondered if some of the man's obsession was due to his personal dislike of Edward Northcote and the portreeve.
They stopped at one of Honiton's several taverns for a bowl of potage and some bread and meat, then John held his inquest, another futile exercise in which he cajoled a dozen bewildered locals to bring in a verdict of felonious killing by persons unknown. Disgruntled by the inevitable imposition of the murdrum fine at the next Eyre, as it was obvious that no presentment of Englishry could be made over the body of Setricus, the jury dispersed, grumbling at the iniquity of the village having to find five marks just because some bloody pedlar got himself killed on their territory.
As Thomas packed up his writing materials after inscribing the lacklustre proceedings on his rolls, de Wolfe had a last word with the Keeper of the Peace before they parted in opposite directions, Luke to his home in Axminster and John back to Exeter.
'What are you going to do about this notion you have concerning Axmouth?' he grunted.
De Casewold lowered his voice and looked around, though there was no one within twenty paces. 'I intend to find this damned cart — or one like it, travelling at night. If I can arrest the driver, I'll soon make the bastard talk!'
For a short fat man, well past his prime as a sword-wielding knight, Luke seemed very confident of his prowess as a thief-catcher, and de Wolfe, though he disliked the man, hoped that he was not going to do something foolhardy and put himself in danger. Unlike his own bodyguard Gwyn, the Keeper's clerk, Hugh Bogge, would be about as much use in a fight as a bladder of lard. Still, there was nothing that he could do about it, and with a perfunctory wave he wheeled his horse about and set off back to the city and the prospect of another dismal evening with his wife.
The following day was not only a Sunday but Palm Sunday, when Matilda began her orgy of devotions for the coming Holy Week with three attendances at the cathedral and one at the 'parish' church of St Olave's.
To be exact, there were no formal parishes in Exeter, but the twenty-seven churches served numerous small areas within the city walls, some catering for only a handful of households within their shadow. The cathedral was not meant to provide for the general public, apart from the great festivals, being a place where continuous worship of the Almighty was maintained by the priesthood at their nine services each day. Palm Sunday was one of the occasions when the great church of St Mary and St Peter put on a show, with a procession not only within the precincts but around the city itself.
John was not an enthusiastic churchgoer, but every few weeks and on the major religious festivals he stirred himself to accompany his wife, mainly out of a sense of duty and propriety. This day, he donned his best grey tunic and a short black cloak, both of them displaying the only colours he ever wore, to Matilda's eternal disgust. She would have preferred him to be more colourful, like the majority of upper-class citizens, but he was obdurate in his choice of clothes.
Matilda had already been to a service at Prime, before the eighth hour, but now urged him out of the house an hour later to watch the procession before Lauds and High Mass. A great winding serpent of figures came out of the West Front of the cathedral, bearing crosses and banners as incense was wafted about. The canons and vicars, the secondaries, choristers and the parish priests preceded the portreeves, burgesses and guild wardens as the cortege chanted and sang its way around the Close to the Palace Gate and out into the streets to perambulate the city.
When the procession finished its circuit, it came back into the cathedral to celebrate Lauds, Matilda and John joining the throng to enter the huge building. As they stood with hundreds of others on the bare flagstones of the great nave, watching and listening to the arcane performance of the quire and canons beyond the carved screen, Matilda nudged her husband with an elbow.
'That's the one you were asking about, over there with the wife wearing the red-velvet mantle'
John looked across a few heads and saw a tall dark-haired man dressed in an expensive green tunic under a long surcoat of cream wool. 'Who is he?' he muttered, not understanding what she was talking about.
'That's Robert de Helion, the manor-lord of Bridport and a very rich merchant,' she murmured impatiently. 'You said he was the owner of that ship you were concerned about.'
De Wolfe stared again, as this was the man he wanted to speak to about the cog The Tiger, which had not yet returned to Axmouth, as far as he was aware. He resolved to go and visit the man in the very near future, though Easter Week was a difficult time to conduct official business.
Soon, the service came to its climax with the High Mass, and before long John found himself outside again, on the steps at the West Front. He hung about awkwardly while his wife gossiped with her cronies, which seemed mainly an opportunity for them to show off their new clothes and their old husbands, if they were men of note or successful at commerce. Matilda had long ago given up trying to inveigle John into these huddles to display him as the king's coroner, and he stood silently on the margins, hunched like some large black crow in his sombre raiment. Eventually, the groups and cliques dispersed and they made their way home to Mary's dinner, before Matilda made off again to St Olave's for another round of kneeling and praying.