‘Not by me they weren’t,’ retorted the reeve and got another clout from Gwyn for his pains.
The coroner’s black brows came together in an angry scowl. ‘Are you trying to tell me that someone else crept into your village, killed them and left you the cargo to steal? You’re the village headman, you know everything that goes on in Torre, so don’t spin me these lies.’
With a vision of mutilation or the gallows strengthening in his mind, Aelfric cast about wildly for an escape. ‘Could have been those people down in Paignton – they’re a bad lot and no mistake.’
This was too much for John, who sprang to his feet and bellowed at the hapless reeve, ‘Be silent, you evil knave! Don’t insult our common sense with such nonsense. You were caught red-handed by the hermit, you had the stolen goods hidden and the bodies cry out that they perished from foul violence. Get back there and wait for the verdict – though there’s little doubt what that will be.’
Gwyn jerked Aelfric back to his place at the front of the crowd, before two other men, whom John and Gwyn had picked out as having been on the beach, were interrogated. Their abject denials were treated with similar scorn.
Two other villeins had absconded since the day the corpses had been revealed: one was the man John had seen scuttling away when the second trio had been discovered in the sand. They had probably vanished into the forest to join the bands of roving outlaws, fleeing from justice.
Within a few more minutes, the inquest was over. The jury of villagers were made to file past the six corpses, several of which, in spite of the cold weather, were now beginning to look the worse for wear. John pointed out the injuries on the heads as they shuffled past, and dictated the elements of the inquest to Thomas, who scribbled furiously on his parchment roll to keep up with the coroner’s flow of words.
In the background, three White Canons, wearing their small round skull-caps instead of monk’s tonsures, stood silently contemplating the evil that men do, more convinced than ever that in this corner of England, which seemed full of sinners, their Premonstratensian order should have a foothold.
Soon the evidence had all been taken and recorded, and the King’s coroner delivered his verdict.
‘Three men have been done to death, callously and for the venal profit of flotsam washed up from the wreck of the vessel Mary of the Sea. The tenants of the manor of Torre had shown great iniquity in stealing the salvaged cargo of the ship, worth at least eighty pounds, according to the merchants here.’ He swept a hand across the crowd. ‘And for failing to report the wreck and the salvage, as should have been done to the sheriff or the coroner, the village is amerced in the sum of twenty marks, to appear before the King’s justices at the next visitation. For attempting to steal the said cargo, the village is amerced in the sum of forty marks.’
A wave of anguish rippled through the crowd at this imposition of a corporate fine, which was huge by the standards of the village’s meagre income: a mark was worth over thirteen shillings, two-thirds of a pound. They could not look to their lord for any contribution – he might even impose his own penalties on them at his manorial court when he found out what had happened. Some lords encouraged wreck pillage, and even took part in it as long as they were accorded the lion’s share, but de Brewere was too politically ambitious to dirty his hands with petty local corruption.
John had not yet finished. ‘Wrecks of the sea and their salvage belong to the Crown and are not for the benefit by theft of those who find them. This remnant of cargo should be forfeit to the royal treasury, but as it so patently belongs to the ship-owner and the consignee of the wine, I will recommend to a later inquest on the goods that they be returned to them in part compensation for the loss of the ship and the rest of the cargo.’
There was more to come. ‘For not raising the hue and cry over these bodies and not reporting them to the coroner, the village is further amerced in the sum of ten marks. Maybe this will teach you not to leave it to some poor hermit’s conscience to bring it to the attention of the King’s officers.’
The coroner paused to draw breath. ‘And for the most heinous sin of killing three innocent seamen, who in the hour of need at the foundering of their vessel should have been given Christian succour but who instead were bludgeoned to death to conceal your thieving purposes, your reeve and two freemen are to be arrested and taken to Exeter to await trial, to be kept there at the expense of the village, which is further amerced at twenty marks for condoning these killings and attempting to conceal them and the existence of the valuable salvage.’
There was a groan that almost echoed over the sea, as the village of Torre heard its financial future for years hence being mortgaged to pay these huge fines. True, no money would be paid over until the King’s judges heard the case at the General Eyre in Exeter, which might be a couple of years away, so slow was the progress of the royal courts about the country. But the fines would hang over them and the buying in of new cattle and pigs, the expenditure on good corn and other things requiring capital, would now be under a cloud for half a decade ahead, as William de Brewere would still expect the manorial fields to be worked by the villagers as usual.
John’s final command, that Aelfric and the other two suspects would be taken under guard to Exeter, had been expected by everyone. They would be imprisoned in the castle gaol to appear before the justices in due course – if they survived more than a few months of incarceration in the foul cells under Rougemont’s keep.
The soldiers, aided by Gwyn’s huge figure, grabbed the three men and hustled them to the carts, where they were tied on to the tailboards for the slow journey back to Exeter. The reeve’s daughter ran forward with screams to hug her father as he was hauled away. Probably this was the last time she would ever see him. Relatives of the other two men also crowded around and the soldiers let them have a few minutes to say their farewells before the cart drivers climbed aboard and flicked their patient oxen into lumbering movement.
The crowd dispersed, grumbling and throwing baleful glances at these officials who had disrupted their simple, but placid lives. To them, a wreck was manna from heaven, goods that could be covertly sold to help village finances, pay the tithes and buy a few more sheep and cattle next spring, perhaps some food, too, if the winter was hard. Starvation hovered over every household after the last salt pork was gone and all the mouldy oats consumed. To them, the death of six sailors was a small price to pay for that: the shipmen would have died anyway, in the next storm, or the one after that.
As they trudged off, despondently wondering who their next reeve would be, John thanked the White Canons for the use of their premises, then collected up his party for the ride back to Exeter. It was not yet half-way through the morning, so they expected to be home well before the December dusk fell.
The sergeant and man-at-arms had gone with the wagons and would not reach the Exe until tomorrow, so it was the coroner and his two men who rode back with Joseph, Edgar, the old clerk and Eric Picot, all in sombre mood. ‘God knows what we shall find when we return,’ said the merchant from Topsham, as their horses climbed the slope across the neck of Tor headland to reach the coastal track. ‘This has been the worst two days of my life.’
But worse was yet to come.
Chapter Six
In which Crowner John disputes with the sheriff
That evening, John found his wife in a strange mood. They ate their evening meal civilly enough, seated at the long, lonely table in their hall, with empty benches between them that should have been filled with sons and daughters had their marriage not been as barren in body as in spirit. Mary brought in hot broth, followed by boiled beef, which was cheap and plentiful at this time of year: most cattle had to be killed by December, due to lack of winter fodder.