'No, I don't. What about you, Elias — you're the harbour master?'
The skinny portreeve shook his grey head. 'Shouldn't be too long; it was supposed to be a quick voyage over to Normandy. But I can't tell when she's due; she may have sunk for all I know!'
'Or been scuttled by pirates!' snapped de Casewold. 'That was the other thing I need to know. I suspect that goods seized with the blood of innocent shipmen have passed through this port. Do you know anything of that, eh?'
Edward Northcote prodded the Keeper in the chest with a large forefinger, hard enough to make him step back a pace. 'Oh yes, I forgot. We had a few bloodstained casks in last week! And the portreeve here saw several bales of Flemish cloth smeared with gore, didn't you, Elias?'
The heavy sarcasm served only to inflame de Casewold's own temper, and he banged his fist angrily on one of the shutters hinged back against the wall.
'Don't you mock me, damn you! I am charged with keeping the king's peace, and murder, theft and piracy rank high amongst felonies! I want to see what's inside those sheds on the wharf and to check the contents with the lists that I am told the portreeve holds. My clerk is quite capable of verifying that all is in order — or if it is not!'
The bailiff's florid face, with its rim of black beard stretching from ear to ear, again jutted towards the Keeper. 'I open those doors only for the merchants to whom the goods belong — and to the shipmen and porters who have to load and unload them.'
'Or the prior's emissary, the cellarer's man from Loders,' added Elias Palmer. 'He has a legitimate right to check that the priory is getting its full commission in return for the ships and merchants having the use of its port.'
'Well, I have even more of a legitimate right,' shouted Luke. 'The right of a king to send his officers to investigate the activities of his subjects!'
For answer, Edward Northcote leant out of his window and seized a shutter in each of his large hands. As he began pulling them shut, forcing the Keeper to stand back to avoid being crushed, he made a final suggestion.
'Come back next week, when the quayside is working again — and maybe we'll let you have a glimpse inside.' With that, he slammed the hinged boards shut and dropped an iron bar across the inside, leaving a fuming de Casewold isolated outside.
As he moved back to the table with Elias, he muttered to him in angry tones. 'We'll have to keep a close eye on that nosy bastard!'
The Easter period passed, with John de Wolfe making several duty visits to both the cathedral and St Olaves Church, accompanying Matilda in her ceaseless devotional perambulations. The Monday was a holiday, celebrated more in the rural areas than in the city, though apprentices and many servants were given a day's respite from their usual work.
The following day there was an unusual call for the coroner's services, which took him at an early hour down to Topsham, the small port fives miles downstream on the estuary of the Exe. He left Thomas behind to say his Masses in the cathedral and, with Gwyn, followed the bailiff of the Exminster Hundred who had called them out. John knew him quite well, as that hundred included his brother's other manor of Holcombe, where Hilda's father was the reeve, as well as Dawlish itself.
They crossed with their horses on the small rope ferry and landed on the marshy area on the other side of the Exe. Riding down alongside the river, they came to the tiny fishing hamlet of Starcross, where they climbed aboard a small fishing boat that went down with the ebbing tide the last half-mile towards the mouth of the river. Here a long tongue of sand stuck out eastwards from the huge area of dunes and scrubland that was Dawlish Warren.
On the wide beach in the lee of this tongue, they saw a group of men standing around a large grey object, and when they came close enough to jump out and wade ashore they saw it was a small whale.
'It was still alive last night, moving its fins a little,' said the bailiff.
As they reached the scene, Gwyn, a former fisherman from Polruan in Cornwall, shook his head sadly. 'Poor thing's stone dead now. Once they get beached, they've not much chance.'
A whale was one of the two 'royal fish', the other being the sturgeon, which by right belonged to the Crown, and one of the coroner's duties was investigating catches and strandings, so that the fish — or more usually its monetary value — could be seized for the king. Half a dozen men and a couple of women and children were standing around, fascinated by the dead animal. About twenty feet long, it lay motionless on the sand, left high and dry by the receding tide.
'It's been swimming up and down for two days,' volunteered one of the younger fishermen. 'Seemed too stupid to know how to get back out to sea around the sand-spit.'
An older one shook his head. 'I've seen a few strandings in my time. Reckon they are usually sick and come close inshore, then are too weak to find their way out again.'
'What's to be done about it, Crowner?' asked the bailiff, a practical man. A whale, even a small one like this, was worth a considerable sum, as the fat rendered down from the blubber was first-class lamp oil, as well as being used for other purposes. If taken fresh, the meat was palatable enough for hungry villagers, and even parts of the skeleton could be used for various purposes.
'It belongs to King Richard,' said de Wolfe. 'Though I doubt we could get it to him in Normandy before it stinks!' he added with an attempt at levity.
'I heard tell that the head goes to the king and the tail to the queen,' countered the bailiff. 'But it sounds a fairy tale to me.'
De Wolfe shrugged. 'I've never heard that before,' he admitted. 'But true or false, I have to dispose of all this beast as soon as possible, before it starts to become foul.'
He looked at the dozen or so people gathered around, some staring expectantly at the dead monster. 'Can you deal with it here? Remove the flesh and the grease?'
The bailiff called over an elderly man, still powerful in the limbs. It was the reeve from Dawlish, whom John knew by sight. After greeting him, the man said that he could soon organise a party to flesh the whale and boil the blubber in pans over fires lit on the beach, taking as much of the meat as they could back to the nearby villages. After discussing the details, the coroner came to a rapid decision.
'In that case, I declare that the whale is seized as the king's property, but that the beast is released to the hundred in the sum of three marks. That will have to be confirmed — or even altered — when presented to the judges at the next Eyre.'
The bailiff nodded his agreement, as though three marks was four hundred and eighty silver pennies, the value of a large quantity of whale oil, plus the meat and whalebone, made it a worthwhile bargain, especially as the money did not have to be paid until demanded at the next Eyre in Exeter, which might be many months away — or even a year or two, if the judges were delayed.
The business being rapidly concluded, John and his officer declined the offer to be rowed back upstream and walked along the beach to fetch their horses. Gwyn knew only too well what was coming next.
'As we are so near Dawlish, it seems a pity not to call there and see if our shipmasters have any news.' John almost convinced himself that this was his only motive. Grinning under his luxuriant moustache, Gwyn hoisted himself on to his brown mare and they trotted off across the sandy scrubland towards the port, only two miles distant.
Almost as if fate was conspiring to assist John's conscience, when they arrived at the small town Gwyn saw at once that another of the cogs belonging to de Wolfe's partnership was beached in the inlet. This was the St Peter, whose shipmaster was Angerus de Wile. When they hailed a young lad sitting alone on the tilted deck, they learnt that his captain was in the nearest tavern with the ship's mate.