‘What’s all this about?’ asked the Bishop suspiciously.
De Revelle stepped in again. ‘John de Wolfe thinks that he can investigate all deaths himself, since Archbishop Walter set up this pointless coroner system. Well, he can amuse himself by recording dead bodies, but the apprehension and punishment of felons remains my responsibility.’
The Bishop nodded. ‘Of course, you represent the sovereign in Devon. I cannot see how anyone can think otherwise.’
Here the Archdeacon interjected craftily, ‘Yet, my lord Bishop, our brother in Canterbury specifically introduced coroners into every county in the land only two months ago. We cannot lightly put aside what has been instituted so recently.’
Henry Marshall twitched his cloak around him and scowled at John de Alecon – their antipathy, mainly due to opposing political allegiances, was well known. The Bishop had been appointed only that year, long after the Archdeacon who had been a member of the chapter for eight years and an archdeacon for four. If the Bishop had been there first, John de Alecon would never have been elevated and Henry Marshall would have liked to get rid of him now, but no excuse to do so had yet presented itself.
‘In matters of investigating crimes, it is the Sheriff who has the first and last say,’ he bleated. ‘If he thinks this man in custody should be put to the Ordeal, then although I have no secular authority, I certainly give it my moral approval. This murder must be solved – and speedily, for the sake of my old friend, mortally sick though he be.’
‘I shall see to it without delay, your grace,’ said de Revelle increasingly. ‘Perhaps you could appoint one of your priests to be present at the castle an hour after dawn tomorrow.’
The ritual of the Ordeal had religious origins, both Christian and pagan. It consisted of subjecting the suspect to physical challenge, usually a torment which often proved fatal, in order to seek a supernatural sign of guilt or innocence. Formerly, the Church had officiated at such ceremonies, usually on sanctified ground, but latterly it had been content to send a cleric to bless the proceedings – indeed, there had been murmurings from the Vatican that this barbaric ritual should be banned.
Bishop Henry had another warning to deliver. ‘This bickering and schism between you custodians of the law must end. I would remind you that Archbishop Walter, who set up these recent matters, is due to visit the diocese soon. I’m sure that, as well as seeing to the spiritual health of his flock, he will want to know how his legal system is faring, so you must put a better face on your relationship. Is that clear?’
Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked solemnly away. The interview was over. With a smirk from the sheriff and a face like a thundercloud on the coroner, the players went their separate ways.
Chapter Thirteen
In which Crowner John attends an ordeal
Much against John’s will, the Ordeal went ahead and, whether he liked it or not, he had to attend. His antagonism to the procedure was not due to humanitarian distaste – or even his healthy scepticism about its usefulness – but because it rankled with him that his brother-in-law could so easily interfere with the coroner’s work. Unfortunately, as he had complained to Gwyn during their ride back from Dartmoor, there had been as yet no firm ruling from the royal justices as to how the jurisdiction of coroner and sheriff interlocked.
Reluctantly, John had to admit that the sheriff’s task was to arrest suspects, investigate their crimes and either try them at the county court, or keep them in custody for the royal judges. It was clear enough that for theft, assault, treason and the like the sheriff had sole responsibility – but where there was a body, the coroner was obliged to record all the facts for the Justices in Eyre, even though he could not try the cases. He also had to examine rapes and serious assaults and record the facts – but it was not clear whether this should prevent the sheriff from trying these cases, as he had been doing for centuries, at least since the time of the Saxon king Aethelstan.
Whatever the rights and wrongs, de Revelle was intent on putting Alan Fitzhai to the Ordeal, and tomorrow morning was the soonest it could be staged.
After he had walked the short distance from the cloisters to his house, the coroner learned from Mary that his wife was still locked in her solar so, not in the mood for another confrontation, John took himself to the Bush, seeking beer and sympathy. Rather to his surprise, he found Gwyn sitting at one of the benches, tucking into a mutton knuckle and onions soaking into a slab-like trencher of bread.
‘Has your wife thrown you out as well?’ he asked, sitting on a stool opposite.
Gwyn stopped chewing on the bone to shake his head. ‘Her brother, the one that’s a carter, came through from Taunton on his way back to Polruan so she and the children have taken a ride on his wagon to see her mother. Won’t be back for two weeks or more, when he makes the next trip.’
Nesta bustled up to give the new arrival a quart jar of ale and a quick squeeze on the shoulder. ‘You’ve come at a busy time, John. I’ll be with you when I’ve settled these folk in their penny beds.’
Half a dozen pilgrims, with wide-brimmed hats and tall staves, had just arrived on their way from Truro to Canterbury, and the businesslike innkeeper was hurrying about, shouting at her chambermaid to bring extra pallets for the upstairs dormitory and yelling at the cook to throw more meat into the pot.
John threw his black cloak on to a bench and took a deep swallow of his beer. ‘So we’re both temporary widowers, Gwyn. Thank God for taverns or we’d both starve and go mad with boredom. What that poxy clerk of ours does with his time I can’t imagine. He never goes into an inn unless we’re travelling.’
Gwyn gave one of his grunts and returned to tearing meat from his knuckle. When this was done, he wiped the fat from his moustache with the back of his hand.
‘I heard about Alan Fitzhai,’ he said. The fraternity of sergeants and men-at-arms in Rougemont seemed to have an almost instantaneous method of communicating gossip.
‘That he’s in the gaol or having to undergo the Ordeal?’ asked John.
‘Both. But I don’t know if it’s supposed to make him open his mouth wider – if he has anything to tell – or to prove his guilt or innocence.’
The coroner sank a good half-pint of ale in one swallow. ‘It’s supposed to determine guilt. These things were dreamed up by priests long ago, so they say, but I can’t see the sense of it myself.’
Gwyn began to tear the gravy-soaked bread into lumps, which he stuffed into his mouth before answering. ‘It’s like this business of murder suspects touching the bier of a dead man, I reckon.’
John frowned, his craggy face furrowing. ‘But that happened to our King when old Henry died at Chinon in ’eighty-nine.’ The story went that when Richard the Lionheart had approached the body of his recently dead father in the abbey of Fontrevault, the corpse began to bleed from the nose and mouth. Richard had fallen to his knees and wept tears of guilt for having contributed to his father’s death.
John wasn’t ready to dismiss all such beliefs, even when they were to the discredit of his hero, Richard Coeur de Lion.
‘But Richard didn’t kill him, did he?’ persisted Gwyn.
‘Helped break the old man’s heart when all his sons turned against him. I’d have expected it of that bastard John, but not my lord Richard.’
They were silent as they both played over old battles in their minds. Then John returned to practicalities. ‘If the sheriff forces Fitzhai to prance across nine red-hot ploughshares or whatever he plans for the Ordeal, then we must try to get as much information out of him as possible beforehand about Hubert de Bonneville.’