Gwyn wiped ale from his luxuriant moustache, then shook his head. ‘Most folk would agree with you, if you did. Especially when they heard of that stabbed straw figure.’
De Wolfe bristled. The more he was pushed, the more he dug in his heels. ‘Damned nonsense! I’m surprised at you, Thomas — a man of the cloth like you. Doesn’t your Church condemn all this pagan belief as heresy?’
They argued back and forth for a while, until all the bread and cheese had gone, but the coroner was adamant about keeping de Pridias’s death at arm’s length. When the good-natured bickering faded, John announced that he was going over to the keep, to goad the sheriff about the loss of his felon, before the trio went out of the city to attend the executions.
As John crossed the inner bailey, he saw that the weather was threatening rain again, but although there had been more thunder, the black clouds were still holding back the inevitable deluge. The air was still and sultry and people seemed enervated as the cloying atmosphere stuck their clothes to their perspiring skin. In the crowded main hall of the keep it was even more of an effort to breathe and John was glad to escape though the small door into de Revelle’s quarters, away from the stench of sweltering humanity.
In the outer chamber, where the sheriff conducted his official business, he found the dapper man checking piles of money that his chief clerk had set out on a side table. As John barged in unannounced, Richard whirled round, his hand going to his dagger, as if he was afraid that some robber was about to steal all the taxes of Devonshire. ‘Oh, it’s only you!’ he snapped ungraciously, turning back to his counting. The clerk, an old grey-haired man in lesser religious orders, had set out orderly rows of silver pennies in piles of twelve, arranged in islands of twenty, so that the sheriff could count them as pounds, an accounting device that, like marks, had no actual coin. Alongside the table was a massive oaken chest, bound with bands of black iron. At the moment it was open and empty, but when the money had been replaced, it would be sealed with a pair of locks, to which only de Revelle had keys.
De Wolfe watched as his brother-in-law continued to count, using one forefinger to tap the piles of coins, while in the other hand he held a sheet of parchment, covered in columns of figures provided by the clerk. De Revelle was quite literate, having been educated when young at Wells Cathedral — a fact that he never failed to rub John’s face in, the coroner never having had any learning other than the hard school of battle.
‘Have you come into a fortune, Richard — or have you taken to highway robbery?’ asked de Wolfe sarcastically.
The sheriff held up a hand for silence until he got to the last row of coins, his lips moving silently as he counted. Then he motioned to the clerk to start replacing the money in the treasury and turned to his sister’s husband.
‘It’s part of the county farm, John. I have to keep a strict check on it.’ His voice conveyed the importance of his office and the depth of his responsibility, although John suspected that his auditing enthusiasm was mainly driven by a desire to see how much he could siphon off into his own purse.
‘I thought that your next submission was not due until Michaelmas?’ commented the coroner. Twice a year, on alternate Quarter Days, every sheriff had personally to deliver the ‘farm’, the taxes squeezed from each county, to the King’s treasury, which was an even larger box kept at Winchester. Originally, payment was made on to a chequered cloth derived from the chessboard, to help the poorly numerate officials make an accurate count, hence the name ‘exchequer’.
Richard ignored John’s question and stalked back to his chair behind the main table which he used as his desk. Today he was attired in a long tunic of dark red silk, with a large silver buckle on his leather belt and a chain of heavy silver links around his neck. His mid-brown hair had been freshly cut into a new style, a thick pad on top surmounting an almost shaven neck and sides. John thought his head looked a little like a mushroom, but he kept his opinion to himself.
‘What brings you here, John? I trust my sister is well?’
‘Matilda is in robust health and is looking forward to a good funeral this afternoon,’ answered John, anticipating with relish the moment when he would tell Richard of the outlaw’s escape.
‘Ah yes, poor de Pridias, I heard of his demise. Some form of stroke, I was told.’
‘Something of that nature,’ agreed John. ‘But another life has been saved today in compensation.’
Richard frowned at his brother-in-law. He knew his warped sense of humour from many previous experiences. ‘Whose life?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘The fellow you sentenced to death yesterday — the outlaw Aethelard,’ John said casually. ‘He escaped to sanctuary and I’ve sent him off to France, though I doubt he’ll get as far as Topsham.’
De Revelle’s foxy face reddened with anger and he launched into a tirade of recrimination, against the prison guards, his soldiery and, obliquely, the connivance of the coroner. ‘He was an outlaw, he couldn’t claim sanctuary! What were you thinking of, damn it?’
Although privately John felt this might be true, he was not going to admit it.
‘Show me the law that says he couldn’t, Richard. Did you want me to keep him for a few months until the royal judges next arrive? The priest of St Olave’s was on the verge of apoplexy at having him in his church for just one night.’
De Revelle fumed on for a while until there was nothing left to say and, his satisfaction achieved, John turned to leave.
‘Will you be at the cathedral later today?’ he asked at the door.
The sheriff nodded irritably. ‘Yes, the man was one of our guildmasters, I must show my respects. Though God knows when I’ll get the time, with all this to attend to.’ He waved a hand at the scatter of parchments across his table and the clerk hovering in the background with more documents.
Glad for once that he was unable to read and therefore free from such labours, John went back to the gatehouse and joined the waiting Gwyn and Thomas for the walk to Magdalen Street, to see five miscreants shuffle off their mortality and to confiscate any property they might own.
The sight of a row of felons kicking at the air in their death-throes did nothing to spoil John’s appetite for his noon-time dinner and he and Matilda did full justice to Mary’s boiled fowl with leeks and turnips. Afterwards, imported dried apricots were washed down with wine from the Loire and, once again, John blessed his partnership with Hugh de Relaga, whereby they shipped wool and cloth abroad and brought such luxury goods on the return trips from both France and Flanders. The ship they most frequently chartered belonged to Thorgils of Dawlish, the elderly husband of the delectable Hilda. He thought wryly that the fruit might taste less sweet in Matilda’s mouth if she knew that it was from a box that Hilda had given him on his last clandestine visit to Dawlish, when Thorgils had been away on the high seas.
‘Mind that you wear your best tunic this afternoon,’ snapped his wife, eyeing his crumpled grey outfit with distaste. ‘Though why you must always insist on such drab blacks and greys, I cannot understand! Other men let themselves be noticed in bright colours.’
John sighed as he recalled her brother’s gaudy outfit. Matilda never failed to berate him for his reluctance to push himself forward in the county hierarchy. ‘Black is surely the most suitable for a funeral,’ he muttered.
‘Well, I’m certainly not wearing black today. I have a fine new blue kirtle. It’s a shame the weather is so hot, or I could show off my new mantle as well.’
An hour later, as one of the large bells tolled monotonously overhead, John escorted his wife the short distance to the cathedral, his tall, black figure stalking slowly alongside her, head thrust forward like that of some huge bird. They joined a small procession of other mourners as they reached the door in the West Front, mostly burgesses and guildmasters all in their best clothes, some as gaudy as peacocks. The beggars and cripples in the Close stared curiously at them and a few urchins and louts made cat-calls, until one of the proctor’s servants chased them away with his staff. Requiem Masses were usually held in the mornings, but the prominence of Robert de Pridias among the commercial community of Exeter — and the fact that his wife’s cousin was one of their canons — had ensured that enough of the cathedral clergy would turn out after their dinner to see the burgess safely into heaven.