‘But surely they must be subject to the laws of the land, like everyone else?’ Thomas persisted.
‘The Stannary laws cover everything except crimes against life, limb and damage to property,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘Where violence is concerned, the King’s law is paramount. The tinners have no immunity from the coroner, so don’t hope for any escape from your scribbling on my Rolls.’
There was a short silence, as they chewed, then Thomas’s curiosity broke through again. ‘So what’s this Great Court you speak of, bailiff?’
‘A few times a year, the tinner representatives gather on Crockern Tor, in the middle of Dartmoor, to discuss all manner of business relating to their trade. The county is divided into three districts for the purpose, with Ashburton, Tavistock and Chagford as the Stannary town for each, where the tin is assayed and stamped for tax. Every district sends twenty-four jurates to the Great Court, where all rules and disputes about staking claims, water diversion, disposal of the waste, coinage and taxation are hammered out. And they deal with offenders too — the gaol at Lydford is never short of customers.’
‘Why should the tinners get this special treatment? Farmers and other traders don’t have it,’ objected the clerk.
‘Because the tin trade brings in a huge revenue to the Crown,’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘Along with wool, it’s the main export of England. King Richard has just sent two hundred and fifty thousand-weights from Plymouth to La Rochelle to pay his troops in France.’
‘To adulterate the silver coinage in lieu of the real thing,’ chortled Gwyn.
De Wolfe scowled at him. Even this justified slight against his revered monarch was unwelcome. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We can’t sit on our backsides all day. There’s work to be done. Let’s get to Chagford. Then, Thomas, you’ll find out about the tinners.’
There were still a few hours of daylight left when they rode up the last hill into Chagford. It was large enough to be called a town, with a small open market square that was also used for the coinage ceremonies. Tracks led out of the town in four directions, mostly downhill as the centre was on a rise.
As they rode in slowly from the east side, John de Wolfe looked about him, trying to remember the place from his boyhood visit. It seemed smaller now than it had been in his memory, though undoubtedly it must have prospered and expanded in the intervening years. Since returning to Devon he had noticed this phenomenon a number of times and put it down to his acquaintance with great cities such as Paris, Marseilles and London.
Two inns and a number of alehouses sat amongst the shop-houses in the main street, which ran across the top of the square. The rest of the town was the usual random collection of timber buildings of widely varying size, mostly thatched but some roofed with wooden shingles or split stone slabs. There were a few stone-built houses, and the church of St Michael, a few hundred yards from the square, was newly built of moorstone. Within a few yards of the larger buildings, smaller cottages and huts straggled out to the margins of Chagford, some planked, others of wattle and daub within timber frames.
The coroner’s party came to a halt at the edge of the square, where a few old men stood bent-backed in the weak sunlight, staring at the newcomers as if they had arrived from a distant star. A handful of housewives were scanning the trays of a few hawkers, but clutched their children to their skirts at the approach of these forbidding strangers. The sight of their own bailiff reassured them and their apprehension soon turned to curiosity.
‘What do we do first, Crowner?’ rumbled Gwyn.
‘Arrange for somewhere to spend the night, then go to see the corpse.’ He looked questioningly at Justin Green, who turned in his saddle to point down the road leading southward.
‘My lord’s manor house is there above the valley, Crowner. We’ll pass it on the way. He told me before I left that there is food, fire and a clean pallet to sleep on, should you wish it.’
De Wolfe grunted agreement. ‘I’ll give him thanks when we meet. Meanwhile, let’s get to this corpse while the light holds.’
The bailiff kicked his horse into a trot and they rode through the centre of the little town and out on a track that led south-westwards. The land was green and steeply undulating, with tracts of woodland alternating with strip fields all around the town. On their left, the main feature was a prominent rounded knoll, which Justin called Meldon Hill, but further ahead they could see the edge of the escarpment that led up on to the huge plateau of Dartmoor.
‘How much further?’ whined Thomas from the rear, as they bumped along on the narrowing track, which began to rise as they neared the moor.
‘My lord’s manor barton is over there,’ said Justin, pointing to a large farmhouse on their right. ‘And that freeman’s house there is Thorne, so it’s less than two miles now,’ he added, waving at a collection of barns around a timber house ahead. ‘The stream-work we’re seeking is just below Thornworthy Down.’
‘What about this Walter Knapman?’ asked the coroner. ‘Would anyone wish to damage his trade by attacking his workmen?’
The bailiff was silent for a moment. ‘I don’t see why they should. The victim was an overman, it’s true. He was in charge of the work and was a valuable fellow because of his experience. But Knapman has a dozen such teams, working all over the district. Killing one man would make little difference to the output — unless this is the first of a massacre,’ he added pessimistically.
‘But would anyone benefit from Knapman’s business being damaged?’ persisted de Wolfe.
‘All the other tin-masters, I suppose, though there’s little competition between them. They sell all they can dig, both at home and abroad. A lot goes to Germany and Flanders.’
Then he hesitated and de Wolfe sensed that the other man had had a sudden thought. He glared across at the bailiff from under his beetling black brows. ‘Well, is there something else?’
‘There is gossip in the alehouses — only idle chatter, mind you — that another tin-master has long been trying to buy some of Knapman’s sites. But Knapman won’t sell. In fact he wants to acquire even more for himself.’
‘Who is this other man?’
‘Stephen Acland, another Chagford merchant. He’s not as prominent in tin as Walter, but he has four or five stream-works, as well as a big interest in sheep.’
‘But he wouldn’t kill because he can’t buy out Knapman, would he?’
The bailiff made a wry face. ‘These tinners can be a strange lot, Crowner. They live in a world of their own, and some think they’re above the rest of the world. Passions can run high amongst them, as you might see if you come to Crockern Tor next week.’
They fell silent as the track dipped down into a small valley, then rose again over the deeper glen of the South Teign stream. As they crested the rise, the coroner waved a gloved hand down to a small building below them on their right. It was built of rough moorstone, with a roof of thin slabs through which projected a crooked chimney.
‘What’s that place?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve seen a few like it today.’
‘A blowing-house, Crowner,’ explained Justin Green, ‘where the shode from the workings gets its first smelting to make the crude ingots that get stamped back in Chagford.’
They came down to the water, where the path crossed a small clapper bridge made of great slabs of slaty stone resting on boulders in the stream bed.
De Wolfe pulled Odin to a halt and looked down into the rushing water, which splashed its way down through a rocky bed banked with coarse gravel on either side. ‘This water’s very murky. I would have expected it to be crystal clear up here, well away from any habitation,’ he observed.
‘It’s often brown because of the run-off from the peat up on the moor. But that cloudiness is from the tinners’ work further upstream. They constantly disturb the sand and gravel, washing away the tailings from the ore. Folks downstream, all the way to Kingsteignton, complain about the dirty water. They have to drink, cook and wash in the grit thrown in by the tinners.’ He sounded peevish, no doubt because he suffered himself.