‘The King’s coroner,’ said John bluntly.
The mason dropped his tools and rose slowly to his feet. Master masons were never a servile breed, they were sought-after craftsmen, well paid, with a strong guild behind them. But the mention of the King triggered respect and attentiveness.
‘Look no further, Crowner, I’m Cenwulf … and I know what business you have with me.’
John liked his directness, sensing an honesty and a desire to assist that was absent in most folk, who would do all they could to evade any contact with the law. ‘Then tell me what you know of this man who lies dead now in Widecombe,’ he said, settled his backside against a large untrimmed stone block and folded his arms, ready to listen.
‘It’s little enough, sir. But I heard the town crier’s messages this morning, when he paraded the close, wanting news of many things, including a man slain near Widecombe. It may have been the same fellow that I met just twelve days ago at Honiton.’
The coroner nodded encouragingly, his long hair swirling over the neckband of his grey tunic. ‘Why do you think he was that man, mason?’
‘Fair, and about the same age as claimed by the crier, but that is little enough. Yet he had a tanned skin and wore a Mussulman’s sword in a curved sheath on his belt.’
‘What was he wearing?’
‘When I saw him, a moleskin rain-cloak, but under that, a green tunic or a surcoat – I couldn’t swear to which. And a red cloth capuchin on his head. He had curious high riding boots, too.’
Thomas, lurking behind his master, whispered in his ear, ‘Certainly sounds like our cadaver.’
Ignoring him, John continued, ‘Where, then, did you see him?’
‘We had harsh words, that fellow and me, a wonder we didn’t come to blows.’
John’s interest quickened. Was this another possible suspect, he wondered. Though it seemed odd that he volunteered in his first few words that there had been bad blood between them, considering that the other man had come to a violent end.
‘I came by my pony from Salisbury, where my contract on the cathedral there had finished and I had arranged for three months’ work here. On the last morning of the journey, I stopped for ale and meat at an inn in Honiton, some fifteen miles on the east road from Exeter. While I was taking my ease on the benches outside, eating and drinking, this man led his horse from the stable and then mounted. The innkeeper stood out to bid him a good journey, so no doubt he had stayed the night there.’
John scratched the stubble on his dark chin. ‘Why did you dispute with him?’
The mason traced a finger almost lovingly along the huge stone touching the material that was his life’s work. ‘He got up on his steed and prodded its belly with a spur. The beast lunged forwards like an arrow from a bow and raced past me, splashing mud and horse-shit from the yard all over me. The bread I was eating was fouled and my clothing splattered.’
‘It was an accident?’ John prompted.
‘Accident be damned! It was the sheer thoughtlessness of a young man with no respect for his elders.’
‘So what did you do?’ chipped in the coroner’s clerk.
‘I yelled after him and shook my fist. He looked back, wheeled his horse around and came back to me. I thought he was going to apologise … but he started to abuse me for shouting and gesturing at him.’
John was not interested in their quarrel – it seemed hardly likely to lead to a murder. He wanted to know more about the other man. ‘Do you know his name – or where he came from, or where he was bound?’
Cenwulf shook his head. ‘I had no reason to be more curious than anyone sitting in the sun with some ale, watching the world go by, until he covered me with mire.’
There was loud crash nearby: a sandstone block had slipped from its sling on the hoist and fallen to the ground. Fortunately no one was standing underneath or the coroner would have had more work that day. Cenwulf, responsible for this team of workers, yelled an oath at them and muttered even more under his breath. ‘Clumsy fools! Men are not what they were in years past.’
John was not to be distracted from his quest. ‘You say he had a horse?’
‘A grey, medium height, dappled in black. It had a black ring around one eye, not the other … and very muddy hoofs!’ he added cynically.
‘You’re an observant man, Cenwulf,’ said John appreciatively. ‘Can you recall anything else?’
The man’s forehead puckered in thought. ‘I was too angry to take much notice. The man looked as if he might strike me with the bolt of leather he used to whack his horse but, thank God, he thought better of it.’
‘Why was that?’ asked John
‘Because I would pulled him off his horse, gentleman or not, and given him a good hammering,’ said Cenwulf truculently. ‘As it was he muttered something, then turned his grey mare and trotted off. That was the last I saw of him. I asked the landlord who he was, but he had no idea of his name, just said he’d taken a night’s lodging on the way from Southampton, but didn’t say where he was going.’
John scratched the dark stubble on his chin reflectively. ‘You said “gentleman”. What led you to think him that?’
‘Good clothes, though foreign-looking. His voice was not that of a common soldier. Though he spoke English as good as me, there was no doubt that he was a Norman.’
John, a half-breed himself, was unsure whether to take this as a compliment or not.
‘Can you recall anything else?’
‘There were bulging saddlebags and two wicker panniers across his beast’s shoulders, next to the rider’s knees. I remember thinking this must be a man going home after a long absence, with gifts and his worldly goods.’
A few more minutes’ questioning showed that the mason had nothing else to offer, apart from the name of the inn, the Plough at Honiton. He would be in Exeter until the early spring, so John knew where to find him if anything else turned up.
The coroner thanked Cenwulf civilly and left him to his work.
As they walked back to the centre of the Close, John gave firm orders to his clerk. ‘Saddle up your mule, Thomas, and go straight to Honiton. Even that sad animal should get you there by nightfall. Here’s threepence for your board and lodging. Stay at the Plough and learn all you can – and be back here directly tomorrow.’ He felt in the pouch at his belt for the coins.
One look at his master’s face convinced Thomas of the futility of protest, so he took the money, crossed himself and slunk off to his lodging.
This left the coroner with no scribe to record the imminent inquest on the Saracen affray, but he decided to commit to memory the names of those involved and to dictate the proceedings to Thomas the next day.
The cathedral bell boomed once above him and he hastened his steps back towards the castle. He had to go past his own door, as St Martin’s Lane led from the close into the high street. If Matilda was at home, there was no risk that she would see and delay him, as no windows opened on to the street. Her room, the solar, was at the back.
However, as soon as he turned the corner into the high street, he saw two familiar figures planted in his path. They were deep in conversation, but as soon as he approached, they turned to greet him.
‘John de Wolfe, are you well? How are the dead today?’
Hugh de Relaga was a portly man, above middle age and with the benign joviality of a merchant blessed with more than average income. He was a wool merchant, with family in Devon and Brittany, and was one of the two portreeves of Exeter. John had purchased a share in his business with money he had acquired during the Irish campaigns and the income from this kept him in adequate, if not lavish comfort.
The other person was a different figure, but an equally staunch friend of John. A churchman, he was of lean, ascetic appearance, almost to the point of being haggard. While the plump portreeve was dressed in a brocade tunic and velvet short-cloak fastened at one shoulder with a large gold brooch, John de Alecon, Archdeacon of Exeter, wore a street cassock of dull fawn hessian, girded by a plain rope, a wooden cross hanging from a leather thong around his neck. His thin grey hair was combed forward to a ragged fringe across his lined forehead. As with Cenwulf the mason, though, the appearance of this sombre priest was relieved by a pair of darting bright eyes, this time of a darker, almost violet blue, a legacy of the Viking ancestors of the Normans. ‘How many customers today, John?’ he inquired. ‘Is the corpse trade flourishing?’