‘Get after the other one – I’ll settle this fellow!’ barked Gwyn. In answer Baldwyn, who for all his evil deeds was no coward, took a great swing at both his attackers, the ball whistling across the whole width of the alley, preventing either opponent from getting close to him.
As the studded metal knob began another traverse, Gwyn jumped forward and jabbed his long sword behind it, trying to get Baldwyn’s shoulder as he turned with the swing of the mace. But the man used Gervaise’s discarded sword to parry left-handed, the two blades clashing like a pair of cymbals.
John dodged the mace on its return trip across the lane and, using his massive sword with two hands, slashed down at the squire’s arm. Baldwyn pulled back and the blade bit into the oak stem, knocking the mace out of his hand. The black sphere spun away out of control and struck Gwyn full in the chest. His stiff-leather jerkin blunted the impact of the conical spikes, but the weight and force of the five-pound ball made him fall backwards, dropping his sword as he staggered.
With a delirious whoop of triumph, Baldwyn followed him down, his sword poised for a thrust through the neck. But not for nothing had his adversaries fought together on dozens of battlefields. In a flash John was between them and another two-handed side stroke pushed Baldwyn’s sword high in the air.
The coroner’s blade skidded down the length of Baldwyn’s and stopped with an arm-wrenching thud against the cross-hilt. Even before Gwyn could pick up his own weapon, John de Wolfe had begun Baldwyn’s defeat. Though the younger man managed to get in one downstroke on John’s shoulder, its strength was easily absorbed by the overlapping metal plates. Before the squire could lift his blade again, John had swung horizontally and hacked into the back of his hand. Baldwyn screamed as bones crunched and blood spurted. With a last desperate swing at the coroner’s neck, he left himself open for a straight lunge and the point of John’s sword went into his chest, through a lung and protruded an inch from his back.
Gwyn, now with his retrieved sword pointing at Baldwyn’s neck, said, ‘He’s done for. I’ll see him finished, if you want to find the other.’
As Baldwyn, his lifeblood rapidly filling the inside of his chest, slowly and silently subsided to the ground, the coroner hauled out his sword from between the dying man’s ribs. He kicked the fallen weapon well clear of Baldwyn’s grasp, in case of any final tricks, and sheathed his own bloody blade. ‘See if he has anything to say as a dying confession – I’ll try to find this other bastard. There’s still no sign of the sheriff and his merry men.’ Leaving Gwyn to witness the last moments of Baldwyn of Beer’s life on earth, the coroner loped away up the alley where Gervaise de Bonneville had vanished.
Disturbed by the commotion, a few fearful faces peered from the window-openings of some of the mean huts in this least salubrious part of town, but no one ventured out to offer help. John could hardly blame them: this might have been just another fight between footpads.
The lanes were still deserted and there was no sign of Gervaise, who had a lead of four or five minutes, which was how long it had taken to deal with Baldwyn.
John soon came out on Bell Hill, one of the main cross streets that led to the South Gate, but this was also empty, though now a few windows showed flickering lights as the earliest risers began to crawl out of their beds for the new day. For want of any better direction, the coroner walked up to the major street junction of the city, where the roads to all four main gates crossed at St George’s Church.
Here, at last, he saw half a dozen men-at-arms walking briskly down the road, with the castle constable and a sergeant hurrying behind. He hailed them and told the constable that one fugitive was dead or dying but that the other was still loose in the town. ‘He came up this way, so he’s not in the lower town,’ concluded the coroner.
‘No one crossed the High Street in the last five minutes, for we’ve just come down that way, Sir John,’ added the sergeant.
Ralph Morin, another experienced campaigner, looked up and down the main roads, swinging his naked sword hopefully in his hand. ‘I reckon he’ll most likely be near the cathedral,’ he said, waving an arm beyond the church of St Petroc, which stood on the opposite corner.
The mention of the cathedral caused Ralph, John and the sergeant to look at each other knowingly.
The constable sighed. ‘I’ll bet the swine has claimed sanctuary,’ he said, reluctantly slamming his sword back into its scabbard.
Chapter Twenty
In which Crowner John goes to the cathedral
No one had had much sleep, and no one had had any breakfast, so the customary snack in the coroner’s chamber above the guardroom of the Rougemont gatehouse was more substantial than usual. The coroner had given Gwyn two silver pennies and his officer had come back at about the ninth hour laden with bread, pork, cheese and smoked fish. Thomas had been sent out to replenish the gallon crock of beer and had also brought some cider, which he much preferred.
Towards the end of their hearty meal, Ralph Morin came up to the bare room and accepted a jar of ale and some bread and cheese.
‘I’ve put men at every door of the cathedral, but I don’t think de Bonneville has the stomach to escape again – there’s nowhere for him to go.’
‘He gave us the slip well enough this morning,’ said the coroner, ‘although he owes that to his squire, who kept us busy long enough for us to lose him in the back lanes.’
The constable took a draught of his beer. ‘The cathedral Close gates are supposed to be locked every night, but people are in and out at all hours. The canons like to go out for drink and to visit their women, and the place is infested with beggars. It’s impossible for them to keep the place secure.’
‘What about the cathedral itself? Is that always open?’
The clerk, considering himself the authority on matters episcopal, ventured a comment. ‘The main west door is hardly ever used. It’s barred most of the time. But there are smaller ones at each side of the west end. They are often left open between services – and, of course, there’s a door into the chapter house and another leading to the cloisters. At the base of the North Tower, there’s a small door alongside the canons’ bread-house.’
The coroner sat hunched on his stool, finishing off a smoked herring. ‘It doesn’t matter a damn how de Bonneville got in. He’s there now and we’re stuck with him for up to forty days.’
‘Where is he holed up?’ Gwyn’s curiosity got the better of his usual silence.
‘Sitting at the foot of an altar in the North Tower,’ replied the constable.
‘Has he said anything yet?’ asked John.
‘Nothing apart from endlessly claiming sanctuary and hanging on tightly to the altar-cloth if anyone goes near him. A couple of canons and their vicars are circling about him, but the big men are going down there in about an hour – the Bishop himself, so they say.’
Gwyn lumbered off his window-sill to pour more drink. ‘Does he get fed in sanctuary?’
They all looked at Thomas, the oracle on this ancient procedure. ‘It’s the responsibility of the village or the Hundred – or, in this case, the town burgesses – to keep him alive for up to forty days. That’s why so many escape from sanctuary as the local people don’t want the expense of feeding and guarding them.’ He crossed himself spasmodically as he spoke.
The constable made a noise expressing disgust. ‘And the task of guarding him falls on us – and that means half a dozen doors to watch. Why the hell didn’t he choose a small church instead? There’s plenty of them in Exeter, God knows, all with only one door.’