'Do we shout, knock or smash it open?' asked Morin. 'They obviously knew we were coming — probably had spies posted on the road.'
'I'll go and look,' volunteered Gwyn, slipping from his saddle.
'Have a care — remember those arrows last week,' warned de Wolfe as his officer ambled towards the gate. The expedition watched as the big Cornishman picked up a rock from the side of the road and used it to pound on the gate. 'God blast you, open this bloody door!' he yelled in a voice that could probably be heard over in Seaton.
There was no response, even after Gwyn had hammered on the unyielding panels a few more times.
Impatiently, the constable nudged his horse's belly to walk it towards the gate, where from his elevated position he could see over the top. The main street stretched before him, houses on either side, with the church and the gate to the quayside in the distance.
'Half the damned village is standing in the road!' he shouted over his shoulder. Turning back, he bellowed over the gate at the few dozen men and a handful of women who were staring at the head that had appeared above the wall.
'The sheriff is here and he commands you in the name of the king to open this gate!'
There was some shuffling and gesturing amongst the throng, who stood some distance away, outside the house of the bailiff. A few defiant shouts were thrown at him, but no one approached to unbar the gate.
'Are they armed?' called de Wolfe, starting to move his own horse up to the barrier.
'A few sticks and cudgels, but nothing more,' said Ralph, wheeling his horse away and coming back to meet the others, who were now moving closer to the gate.
'I'll soon get us in there!' growled Gwyn, spitting on his hands. Reaching up, he seized the top of the gate and with a mighty heave pulled himself up until he could tilt his belly across the top. Though he was a big, heavy man, he had such strength in his arms that he could lift his bulk sufficiently to straddle the top and pull his legs over, to drop to the ground on the other side. There was an outburst of angry shouts from the crowd down the road, but still no one approached.
Gwyn pushed up the long bar from its iron sockets on the back of the gate and threw it aside, then hauled the gate wide open. Led by the sheriff, the troop trotted through and advanced on the throng further down the track.
As they approached, some of them scattered, but others stood their ground and jeered truculently as the king's men bore down on them. John saw that Edward Northcote stood by the fence around his cottage, with Elias Palmer and John Capie by his side. Further away, the old priest, Henry of Cumba, leant on his stick alongside some of the less demonstrative of his parishioners.
'Why have you broken into our village, uninvited?' demanded the bailiff. 'This is Church land. You know well enough that it belongs to the Priory of Loders.'
'It is not Church land, as you call it,' snapped de Furnellis. 'It is a manor ceded to an alien house. Which is irrelevant, anyway, as in murder or treason the king's writ runs everywhere, apart from the temporary respite of sanctuary.'
Before Northcote could argue, the coroner broke in. 'Why did you bar the gate against us? A futile gesture, as you see, but it points towards your guilt before we even ask a single question!'
'Guilt about what?' demanded Northcote.
'Don't play the innocent with me, man,' snapped the sheriff. Henry was getting too old and intolerant to bandy words and came straight to the point. 'You know damned well that The Tiger and her crew were caught red-handed in an act of piracy. Martin Rof is in gaol and will be hanged — he should be hanged twice, once for being a pirate and again for strangling that lad Simon Makerel.'
'What has that to do with me?' shouted Northcote angrily. 'I know nothing of piracy. What Rof or anyone else is up to in secret is their affair, not mine.'
'Tell that to the king's justices when you are arraigned before them,' suggested de Wolfe. 'For I don't believe that anything can happen in Axmouth without your knowledge — and probably your permission.'
As they were speaking, the soldiers had spread out so that they were partly surrounding the villagers, many of whom had already slipped furtively away to their homes.
'You were warned about our coming, no doubt,' snapped the sheriff. 'And you were told of the rout of The Tiger, almost certainly by Henry Crik. Where is he?'
'How should I know? He is Sir Robert de Helion's man, not mine.'
'Right, then we'll do this the hard way,' said de Furnellis grimly. He muttered to the constable and Morin sent Sergeant Gabriel and most of the men-at-arms hurrying off to search every house. There was an outcry from some of the villagers, but they were pushed aside as a wholesale hunt went on in the two-score dwellings of the village, as well as in their storehouses and stables. While this was going on, the bailiff, the silent portreeve and the Customs man Capie were taken into Northcote's house and stood between two soldiers while they were questioned further. Stolidly, they denied all knowledge of any piracy or illegal disposal of pillaged goods, claiming that all the cargo that was landed from every vessel was properly accounted for.
'If Martin Rof was stealing from other ships, then he must have disposed of the cargo at other ports,' said Elias, speaking at last in a quavering voice. 'Maybe Lyme or Dartmouth — they are not particular there where their stuff comes from.'
At that moment there was a scuffle outside and Gabriel entered with two soldiers pushing a couple of men before him. 'We found these hiding in the washhouse behind the portreeve's house,' said the sergeant. The two fugitives were Henry Crik and Brother Absalom, both putting on a great show of indignation, which was cut short by the sheriff.
'Why did you hide yourselves away, eh? What have you got to hide?'
The lay brother from Loders angrily tried to shake off the hand of a trooper who was grasping his arm. 'We fled because we heard that soldiers were descending on the village,' he snarled. 'Knowing of the ways of crude fighting men, we feared for our life and limb!'
'I know nothing of what goes on here. I am a servant of a respectable merchant,' cried the agent.
'Crik, you are a liar and a thief — and possibly a murderer!' said de Wolfe. 'I accuse you of disposing of stolen goods obtained through piracy. I suspect you are one of the main plotters, along with these other men.'
The agent strenuously denied the accusations and defied the coroner to offer any proof.
'What about you, Brother Absalom?' cut in the sheriff. 'As someone who looks after the priory's interests, I fail to see how you could be unaware of what's been going on here.'
The cellarer's man looked sullenly at de Furnellis. 'I am in holy orders and I decline to answer any questions whatsoever. If you have questions, address them to the prior, for I'll say nothing at all, except to deny these scandalous accusations.'
The interrogation continued but was met with total denial by the four men.
John turned to John Capie, who had been skulking in a corner trying to look inconspicuous. 'You, what do you know about any of this?' he growled.
The excise man turned up his hands. 'I told you last time, Crowner, all I do is count what comes in and goes out of the ships' holds. Where it comes from and where it goes is beyond me. My job is just to make tallies and give them to the portreeve.'
The bailiff drew himself up haughtily, having recovered all his considerable confidence. 'Once again, you law officers have unjustifiably disrupted and insulted our village! If you have no further business here, leave us to get on with our labours.'