The Poisoned Chalice (12 page)

This was too much for John, who sprang to his feet and bellowed at the hapless reeve, ‘Be silent, you evil knave! Don't insult our common sense with such nonsense. You were caught red-handed by the hermit, you had the stolen goods hidden and the bodies cry out that they perished from foul violence. Get back there and wait for the verdict – though there's little doubt what that will be.'

Gwyn jerked Aelfric back to his place at the front of the crowd, before two other men, whom John and Gwyn had picked out as having been on the beach, were interrogated. Their abject denials were treated with similar scorn.

Two other villeins had absconded since the day the corpses had been revealed: one was the man John had seen scuttling away when the second trio had been discovered in the sand. They had probably vanished into the forest to join the bands of roving outlaws, fleeing from justice.

Within a few more minutes, the inquest was over. The jury of villagers were made to file past the six corpses, several of which, in spite of the cold weather, were now beginning to look the worse for wear. John pointed out the injuries on the heads as they shuffled past, and dictated the elements of the inquest to Thomas, who scribbled furiously on his parchment roll to keep up with the coroner's flow of words.

In the background, three White Canons, wearing their small round skull-caps instead of monk's tonsures, stood silently contemplating the evil that men do, more convinced than ever that in this corner of England, which seemed full of sinners, their Premonstratensian order should have a foothold.

Soon the evidence had all been taken and recorded, and the King's coroner delivered his verdict.

‘Three men have been done to death, callously and for the venal profit of flotsam washed up from the wreck of the vessel
Mary of the Sea
. The tenants of the manor of Torre had shown great iniquity in stealing the salvaged cargo of the ship, worth at least eighty pounds, according to the merchants here.' He swept a hand across the crowd. ‘And for failing to report the wreck and the salvage, as should have been done to the sheriff or the coroner, the village is amerced in the sum of twenty marks, to appear before the King's justices at the next visitation. For attempting to steal the said cargo, the village is amerced in the sum of forty marks.'

A wave of anguish rippled through the crowd at this imposition of a corporate fine, which was huge by the standards of the village's meagre income: a mark was worth over thirteen shillings, two-thirds of a pound. They could not look to their lord for any contribution – he might even impose his own penalties on them at his manorial court when he found out what had happened. Some lords encouraged wreck pillage, and even took part in it as long as they were accorded the lion's share, but de Brewere was too politically ambitious to dirty his hands with petty local corruption.

John had not yet finished. ‘Wrecks of the sea and their salvage belong to the Crown and are not for the benefit by theft of those who find them. This remnant of cargo should be forfeit to the royal treasury, but as it so patently belongs to the ship-owner and the consignee of the wine, I will recommend to a later inquest on the goods that they be returned to them in part compensation for the loss of the ship and the rest of the cargo.'

There was more to come. ‘For not raising the hue and cry over these bodies and not reporting them to the coroner, the village is further amerced in the sum of ten marks. Maybe this will teach you not to leave it to some poor hermit's conscience to bring it to the attention of the King's officers.'

The coroner paused to draw breath. ‘And for the most heinous sin of killing three innocent seamen, who in the hour of need at the foundering of their vessel should have been given Christian succour but who instead were bludgeoned to death to conceal your thieving purposes, your reeve and two freemen are to be arrested and taken to Exeter to await trial, to be kept there at the expense of the village, which is further amerced at twenty marks for condoning these killings and attempting to conceal them and the existence of the valuable salvage.'

There was a groan that almost echoed over the sea, as the village of Torre heard its financial future for years hence being mortgaged to pay these huge fines. True, no money would be paid over until the King's judges heard the case at the General Eyre in Exeter, which might be a couple of years away, so slow was the progress of the royal courts about the country. But the fines would hang over them and the buying in of new cattle and pigs, the expenditure on good corn and other things requiring capital, would now be under a cloud for half a decade ahead, as William de Brewere would still expect the manorial fields to be worked by the villagers as usual.

John's final command, that Aelfric and the other two suspects would be taken under guard to Exeter, had been expected by everyone. They would be imprisoned in the castle gaol to appear before the justices in due course – if they survived more than a few months of incarceration in the foul cells under Rougemont's keep.

The soldiers, aided by Gwyn's huge figure, grabbed the three men and hustled them to the carts, where they were tied on to the tailboards for the slow journey back to Exeter. The reeve's daughter ran forward with screams to hug her father as he was hauled away. Probably this was the last time she would ever see him. Relatives of the other two men also crowded around and the soldiers let them have a few minutes to say their farewells before the cart drivers climbed aboard and flicked their patient oxen into lumbering movement.

The crowd dispersed, grumbling and throwing baleful glances at these officials who had disrupted their simple, but placid lives. To them, a wreck was manna from heaven, goods that could be covertly sold to help village finances, pay the tithes and buy a few more sheep and cattle next spring, perhaps some food, too, if the winter was hard. Starvation hovered over every household after the last salt pork was gone and all the mouldy oats consumed. To them, the death of six sailors was a small price to pay for that: the shipmen would have died anyway, in the next storm, or the one after that.

As they trudged off, despondently wondering who their next reeve would be, John thanked the White Canons for the use of their premises, then collected up his party for the ride back to Exeter. It was not yet half-way through the morning, so they expected to be home well before the December dusk fell.

The sergeant and man-at-arms had gone with the wagons and would not reach the Exe until tomorrow, so it was the coroner and his two men who rode back with Joseph, Edgar, the old clerk and Eric Picot, all in sombre mood. ‘God knows what we shall find when we return,' said the merchant from Topsham, as their horses climbed the slope across the neck of Tor headland to reach the coastal track. ‘This has been the worst two days of my life.'

But worse was yet to come.

That evening, John found his wife in a strange mood. They ate their evening meal civilly enough, seated at the long, lonely table in their hall, with empty benches between them that should have been filled with sons and daughters had their marriage not been as barren in body as in spirit. Mary brought in hot broth, followed by boiled beef, which was cheap and plentiful at this time of year: most cattle had to be killed by December, due to lack of winter fodder.

At the end of the meal, they took their mugs of hot wine to the fireside and sat one each side of the great open hearth. Each had a monk's chair, almost like a sentry box with a cowled hood, to keep out the draughts that blew in through the shuttered window opening, as well as under the doors.

While they were eating, John had related the events of his trip to Torbay, the inquest, the meeting with the Topsham merchant and his brief visit to Stoke-in-Teignhead. The last was received with stony silence by Matilda, as her feelings for his family, especially his mother, were as distant as theirs for her. She had always felt that her father had made her marry beneath her, to a minor knight who no longer had family still in Normandy, like the de Revelles.

Now they sat before their fire and she scowled at the crackling logs. ‘You're always away, John. What kind of husband neglects his wife so?'

He groaned at the return of the same old topic. ‘You know very well that I had to tell Joseph and his son of the tragedy here – you yourself told me to go, yesterday morning.'

‘You always have some excuse,' retorted Matilda, illogically. ‘No other wife among the leading people of our city is left alone so often to fend for herself.'

John abandoned any attempt to reason with her. ‘How is Christina today? You said you had been to the house earlier.'

With a sudden change of mood, she became almost amiable, her interest quickened in the Rifford drama. ‘The poor girl is better in herself, in that her pain has subsided and her scratches and bruises are fading already. But her state of mind is delicate. She weeps and laughs by turns, one minute saying that all is well, the next sobbing that she wishes to be dead.'

‘It is to be expected, I suppose,' said John mildly, hoping to mollify his wife by agreeing with her.

But she glared at him, her heavy-lidded eyes gimlet-like in the square face. ‘How would you know what is to be expected? What dealings have you ever had with a ravishment, except perhaps as a perpetrator in one of your soldier campaigns?'

He ignored her attempt to be deliberately offensive and asked, ‘Did she say any more about the circumstances of the assault?'

With another mercurial shift of temperament, Matilda lowered her spiced wine to her lap and spoke in a low, almost confidential tone. ‘I sat with her this afternoon and for a time she was almost her old self. She related more details of that awful evening.'

John sat forward, hopeful that he would hear something of use to his investigation. ‘She has some memory of who attacked her?'

Matilda pursed her lips. ‘No, she saw nothing of him. But she told me more details of her visits that evening. She had been to our neighbour to collect some bauble, which that weedy English youth Edgar had bought her.'

Matilda considered all Saxons inferior and Celts, such as the Cornish and Welsh, on a par with farm animals. Part of her antipathy to John's family was that his mother was a Celt. She tried to forget that her husband was only half Norman. ‘Christina told me that the two men who work for Fitzosbern, both Saxons, were ogling her continually in a most lewd fashion.' She sniffed in disapproval. ‘I can't imagine why he employs such riffraff. Surely there is a better class of silversmith to be had.'

John sat back in disappointment. ‘Is that all she had to say? Did she see either of them follow her to the cathedral, for instance?'

Matilda shook her head, the coiled braids of hair in their crespines of gold-thread net bouncing above her ears. ‘Is there any need? Obviously one of those foul men was her assailant. She had been in the shop not an hour before and was embarrassed by the suggestive looks and words of these men. One or perhaps even both are surely guilty. How can it be otherwise?'

The crowner sighed: his wife's sense of justice was as arbitrary as her brother's. ‘That is pure supposition, without a shred of proof, Matilda. There must be hundreds of men in Exeter who have lusted after Christina – she is an acknowledged beauty. Someone saw her walking alone at night and took the opportunity to satisfy their lust – there is no reason at all to accuse one of those smiths.'

‘They are better suspects than any of your anonymous hundreds, John! Can you come up with two better names yet?

He stayed silent, afraid that if he spoke his mind further she would go off into one of her rages or sulks.

‘I wonder that Godfrey allowed his men to be so forward with a customer. He should have punished those lechers for so much as casting a bold glance at the girl,' she said self-righteously.

John noticed that Matilda referred to their neighbour by his Christian name. He knew that she fawned upon the fellow because he flirted with her and paid her patently insincere compliments when they met in the street or at some civic function. He himself couldn't stand the fellow, with his dandyish clothing and conceited swagger. ‘Christina said nothing else of use, then?'

‘I considered that of considerable use, John. I made a point of telling Richard when he called to see me this afternoon. A good job my brother is solicitous over my health and feelings, for my husband certainly is not.'

John chafed inwardly at her words. ‘You spun this tittle-tattle to your brother?'

‘Of course – and greatly interested he was, too. He said that he will send men to bring the two smiths to Rougemont tomorrow to interrogate them.'

Her husband lost patience. ‘I wish you would leave enforcing the law to those whose job it is, Matilda. If Christina had wanted the sheriff to know of this, she would have told him herself.'

Like a spark to dry tinder, that started her off. She raved at her husband, accusing him of being uncaring, ungrateful and half the man her brother was. She upbraided him for a dozen real sins and a dozen imaginary ones, half rising from her chair until her wine spilled over unnoticed.

Mary, who came in to clear the remnants of the meal, tiptoed out again, sorry for the master but unwilling to get embroiled in any partisan role that might cost her her job.

John screwed down his rising anger, in the faint hope that her tantrum would subside as quickly as it had arisen, but now she was in full spate. Eventually, unable to get in a word during her vituperative onslaught, he stood up so suddenly that the cowled chair went over backwards with a crash. ‘That's enough, wife!' he roared, so violently that Matilda was stopped in mid-sentence, her mouth remaining open as he loomed over her. ‘Rant and shout all you want, woman, but do it alone. I'm going out!' He marched to the door of the vestibule and yanked it open with a screech of its hinges.