‘He is indeed – and that gross imbecile Stigand has not the faintest notion of how to treat a sick man. Fitzhai is delirious with fever from that septic arm. He’ll be dead in a day or two, barring a miracle. And, of course, de Revelle and the Precentor take it for the judgement of God in proving his guilt – though I think the sheriff would prefer to hang him, rather than lose him to suppuration.’
The constable turned to leave and John called after him that he would try to get the sick prisoner moved to the care of the nuns, who had at least some idea of hygiene.
‘So what news have you found for me, Gwyn? Tell me, while the little fellow is exercising his Latin.’
Thomas was sitting at the table finishing details of that morning’s hangings on his roll. Unusually, one of the executed criminals had been a fairly rich grain merchant, with land both outside the walls in Southernhay and a manor at Teignmouth. He had been caught out in an established fraud involving short weight in both buying and selling corn. It was rumoured that several prominent burgesses had covered up for him, for a cut of the proceeds, but political power had kept their names out of the scandal, the merchant himself being used as the scapegoat. John had suspicions about Godfrey Fitzosbern, his odious next-door neighbour in St Martin’s Lane, but nothing could be proved. In any event, the county court, spurred by howls of indignation from the Guilds, had sent the man to the gallows, when undoubtedly a number of eminent citizens had breathed a sigh of relief that his mouth was now finally closed. The coroner was keen to see that the value of his goods and land, forefeit to the Crown, reached the Treasury and were not spirited away by others. He therefore had Thomas making a detailed inventory of the merchant’s estate and a full record was being inscribed on the rolls.
While the clerk was busy with his quill and ink, John heard Gwyn’s account of his fortunate encounter with the Welshman in Southampton. ‘At least we know there was a squire and that he was sent on ahead of de Bonneville to announce his master’s coming,’ concluded the coroner’s officer. ‘And this man Nebba seems to flit in and out of our sight, but how he could be involved I can’t tell.’
John pondered the news, the lines running down from the corners of his mouth deepening as he concentrated. At length, he said, ‘One question leads to even more problems. First, is this stabbed and cut-throated corpse really Aelfgar? And why did no one from Peter Tavy enquire about Hubert’s squire?’
Squatting in his favourite place on the sill of the window-slit, the Cornishman ran his fingers through his red moustache. ‘The last question is easy to answer. As far as I know, they knew nothing of Aelfgar’s existence. When he left for the Crusades, he joined a few men from the Tavistock area who had taken the cross and journeyed in a group to take ship across the Channel. Hubert could have met Aelfgar anywhere between here and Acre.’
John accepted the explanation. ‘But that means that they would have no means of identifying the body, even if it was in good enough a condition still to show his features. So how the devil are we going to know if it’s this man or not?’
‘He’s from Totnes,’ said Gwyn reasonably. ‘Enquiries there will no doubt confirm it. The problem is that, unlike Hubert, he’s beyond recognition from putrefaction by now. Even his own mother wouldn’t know him.’
‘And his clothing and effects are useless, if he’s been a year or two in the Levant … But wait a moment – what about that strange crucifix?’
Gwyn got up and went to the rough wooden chest in the corner where oddments were kept. He rummaged inside and took out the crude ornament that had hung around the dead man’s neck, together with the empty dagger scabbard. ‘But this may have come from Palestine too,’ he objected.
John took the little cross from him and looked at it, turning it over in his powerful fingers. ‘No, it’s almost pure tin. Most of the tin in the world comes from Devon and Cornwall, so maybe he took it to Outremer to remind him of home. Someone might recognise it – I’ve not seen anything like it before.’
He snapped his fingers at the clerk. ‘Up at dawn in the morning, Thomas. You can goad that mangy mule of yours across to Totnes, then on up to Dartmoor, to see what you can discover about this Aelfgar.’
Thomas groaned and Gwyn, hugely amused by his dejection, snatched the feathered quill from his fingers and stuck it behind Thomas’s ear.
‘Cheer up, priest. Totnes is famed for its pretty girls. You’ll be a real hit with them – better than goosing novice nuns, eh?’
If the clerk’s crooked eye could have killed, Gwyn of Polruan would have dropped dead on the spot.
Chapter Fifteen
In which Thomas de Peyne plays the spy on Dartmoor
The following day, even though a chill easterly wind was whirling the autumn leaves from the trees, a slight thaw was noticeable in St Martin’s Lane. While John was eating breakfast in solitary state in the gloomy hall, Matilda suddenly appeared and sat down at her place at the opposite end of the long table.
No words were spoken and she ignored him, but this was at least a start in the peace process after a whole week’s hostilities. Mary came in and quietly set some food and a cup of hot wine in front of her mistress, winking at John over the folded white linen of Matilda’s headdress.
The coroner murmured a greeting, which his wife seemed not to hear, then maintained a discreet silence, hoping to avoid any careless remark that might reopen the battle.
At the end of this strained meal, Matilda rose and stalked to the door. John, with uncharacteristic gallantry, hurried to open it for her and was rewarded with a murmur that he assumed was thanks, before she vanished to the seclusion of the solar.
‘Things are looking up, Sir John,’ observed Mary, cheerily, as she bustled in to clear the debris on the table.
‘The mistress seems to be coming round slowly,’ he whispered, always conscious of the solar window high in the wall above. The maid clattered together the two platters and mugs and brushed the remaining crusts to the floor for Brutus to chew.
‘You’ve been a good boy the last few days, coming home every night and not spending too much time in the Bush,’ she murmured. ‘I reckon you’ll get your bed back tonight and not have to sleep in front of the fire.’
As she went out of the door with the dishes, he reached out a hand to pat her curvaceous bottom, but she swerved to evade him and wagged a forefinger in admonishment.
He grinned, which was rare these days, then took his dagger belt and short cloak from the vestibule before setting off in the biting wind for his chamber at the castle.
The same wind, bringing an occasional flurry of sleet, had chilled Thomas de Peyne for much of the day as he travelled from Exeter to Totnes and then up to the bleaker wastes of Dartmoor.
Although Gwyn of Polruan sneered endlessly at Thomas’s mule – and even the coroner had hinted at providing him with a horse – the sturdy beast had kept up a steady trot all day. Although slow compared to the great animals that the other men possessed, the animal never seemed to tire and his daily mileage was almost as good as that of the horses.
Thomas reached Totnes about three hours after dawn and soon completed the first part of his business. Although unfrocked, he still had a rapport with his brother clergy, especially if they were unaware of his unfortunate history, so he usually made one of the parish priests his first port of call.
Over a jar of weak ale – which Thomas disliked, though there was little else to drink apart from cider and water – he soon learned that Aelfgar had indeed been a native of Totnes. He had been born there and his mother and sister still worked as laundry-maids in the manor house. They were pure Saxons, the mother’s grandfather having been dispossessed of his considerable estate by the Normans soon after the Domesday survey that had followed the Conquest. The priest, himself half-Saxon, said this bitterly, but the thrust of his information was that Aelfgar, a professional man-at-arms, had gone away some five years earlier and had not been heard of since. It was assumed that either he had been killed in battle or he was in some distant land, fighting as a mercenary. The priest’s only description of him as a ‘fair-haired man’ was all but useless, but when Thomas fished in his scrip and pulled out the twisted tin crucifix, the cleric uttered a cry of surprise. ‘I gave him that myself! He did me a service not long before he left. I fell from my donkey on the road to Paignton and broke my ankle. Aelfgar found me and brought me back home to safety so I gave him this cross as a token. My father is a tin-miner in Chagford and used to make these as a pastime.’