Crowner Royal (Crowner John Mysteries) (21 page)

‘Have you any idea who might have wished your father harm?’ asked de Wolfe.

The carpenter shook his head. ‘We were not that close, since I married and went to live in Charing a few years ago. But he was just a craftsman, like myself. Who would wish to kill him?’

‘I was told that he has not been robbed. Is that true?’

Simon nodded. ‘When I was here earlier with the other officers, they gave me my father’s money chest. It was a small thing, but had a reasonable sum in it. It was not hidden, just left in his sleeping room upstairs. Any thief would have found it in the twinkling of an eye.’

John grudgingly allowed his estimation of Sheriff Robert fitz Durand to rise, learning that he had not dipped his hand into the money chest, but restored it straight away to the family. However, this did not help him in any way to understand the motive for the crime. He waved a hand around the workshop.

‘Is there anything here that is out of place or missing?’ he asked. ‘Though I admit it would be hard to tell, given the appearance of the place.’

Again, the son could not help, saying that he had not visited for the past month and that the workshop was always as chaotic as this. ‘His living quarters are better, sir,’ he added in defence of his dead father. ‘There is no disorder up there.’

Nothing further could be learned from the man and with some rather gruff condolences and a promise that the house would be made secure, they watched Simon leaving, clutching some of the tools and a bundle of clothing.

John waited in the yard, morosely studying the pool of dried blood, while Gwyn found a hammer and nails amongst the litter in the workshop, which he used to roughly repair the door.

On the way back to the alehouse for a final drink, the coroner bemoaned his inability to round up the people who knew the victim and grill them for any knowledge of the man and his affairs.

‘That bloody sheriff can’t have made any worthwhile enquiries,’ he growled. ‘In the short time he was here today, he would never have been able to find any witnesses – and by the sound of it, he’s not even going to hold an inquest.’

Gwyn hunched his broad shoulders in a gesture of dismissal. ‘Well, although it’s a mystery, it’s nothing to do with us now, Crowner. We’ll never hear any more of it, I reckon.’

Gwyn was not often wrong, but this was a glaring exception.

The next morning brought a genuine case to the Coroner of the Verge, one that needed no consideration about involving the city or Middlesex. It was no mystery or even a crime, but had to be dealt with according to the law. A mason’s labourer had been crushed to death by a large block of stone which fell from the top of the second storey of the Treasury building, on the river side of the front of the Great Hall.

This edifice had previously been wooden, but during the past few years had been progressively rebuilt in stone. The balustrade around the top, surrounding the pitched slate roof, was the last part to be completed.

‘They send me idiots as workmen!’ fumed the master mason, who was in charge of the construction. He was standing at the foot of the wall where the accident had taken place, with de Wolfe and his officer and clerk staring at the mess on the ground. Some of the mess was bloody, being the still shape of the dead workman, pinned under a quarter-ton block of Caen limestone imported from Normandy. Around it was a tangle of splintered timber and rope, the remains of the derrick that had been hauling up the block.

As other men prepared to lever off the stone to retrieve the body, the coroner listened to the mason’s diatribe about the uselessness of his workforce, who had improperly secured the tripod on the parapet.

‘The fools allowed the sheer-legs to lean out too far and overbalance with the weight of this heavy block,’ he ranted. ‘May the Blessed Virgin bar me from Heaven for all eternity, if I lie when I say that I have repeatedly told those men exactly what to do and how to do it!’

John allowed the fiery builder to let off steam, then told Gwyn and Thomas to organise a jury for an inquest in an hour’s time, as this seemed a straightforward, if tragic event. It was obvious that the master mason felt both guilty and vulnerable to criticism, which was why he was so incensed at his men and intent on passing the blame down the line.

The inquest, held in a vacant bay of the adjacent Great Hall, was short and unremarkable, a dozen workmen being empanelled as witnesses and jurors. A few people came to the proceedings, including the Clerk of Works and the Keeper, Nathaniel de Levelondes, who was ultimately responsible for the running of the palace. Also present were several of the senior Chancery and Treasury clerks, as the building operations concerned their departments of state.

Amongst the few curious onlookers, John was rather surprised to see Renaud de Seigneur and his wife. He could only assume that having exhausted the sights of London, they seized on any diversion to fill their time until the old queen came and they could go on their way to Gloucester and Hereford.

The inevitable verdict of accident was dictated by de Wolfe to the jury. He added a comment before dismissing them.

‘I see no point in declaring the errant derrick and block of limestone as “deodands”, even though they were the immediate instruments that caused death,’ he boomed, glowering around at the bemused faces of the jury. ‘It seems pointless to confiscate them or declare their value as a fine, when the proceeds would only go back to the Crown, who owned them in the first place!’

Leaving the Keeper to deal with any disciplinary proceedings against the master mason or his men for negligence, the inquest concluded and the participants melted away from the huge hall. Anxious to get back to Osanna’s dinner, de Wolfe and his officer set out across New Palace Yard for the main gate, but were ambushed by Renaud de Seigneur and the delectable Hawise.

‘That was a most effective demonstration of justice,’ effused the husband. ‘We do not have such a system in Blois, though of course our neighbours in Normandy have coroners.’

John felt that he was talking for the sake of making a noise, rather than from any real interest, but courtesy obliged him to stop and listen, aware that Gwyn was glowering behind him, his stomach rumbling audibly at the prospect of dinner being delayed.

John muttered a few platitudes about the advantages of Hubert Walter’s importation of coroners from across the Channel, as he tried to edge away and make his escape from this clinging pair. Hawise, in an equally clinging gown of pale-blue linen, under a pelisse of cream silk, pouted as she reluctantly stood aside. ‘You are always rushing away somewhere, Sir John!’ she complained. ‘No doubt you have important matters to attend to, but I am glad that I had the chance to see you perform today.’

As de Wolfe broke away and hurried towards the gate into King Street, Gwyn growled indignantly. ‘Perform, indeed! She makes you sound like a mountebank’s monkey! That woman is good for only one thing, Crowner – and she makes it bloody obvious what that is!’

John was of much the same opinion, but he held his tongue and soon the incident was forgotten in the delights of Osanna’s leek soup followed by pig’s liver fried with onions, with a pile of boiled carrots and parsnips. The weather had turned sultry again – hot, still and humid, with dark clouds massing on the horizon threatening another thunderstorm before nightfall. The atmosphere encouraged torpor and the two old comrades slumped at the table to end their meal with a quart of Aelfric’s home brew. Soon Gwyn had rested his head on his arms and began snoring, while John lethargically mused about Hawise d’Ayncourt, wondering how her body looked under those elegant clothes. He didn’t much like her, but that was no barrier to him desiring her.

As he watched Gwyn’s tousled red locks quiver with each snorting breath, John sleepily analysed his love life. At forty-one, he felt as virile as he had at eighteen, but the years were passing ever more quickly and he viewed the prospect of extended celibacy with dismay, unless he patronised one of the Bishop of Winchester’s stews in Southwark. Though John would forfeit his very life before being unfaithful to his king, he would be the first to admit that he was not a faithful man when it came to women. He had loved Nesta deeply enough to have rarely strayed for almost two years, but it had been an effort. He felt a similar guilt when it came to Hilda, but although he had known her for many years he had slept with other women in the lonely years of distant campaigning.

Before he also laid his head on his arms and snoozed at the table, he thought dreamily of the full lips and languorous eyes of Hawise d’Ayncourt, deciding that any reluctance for him to bed her would be on the grounds of diplomatic complications with the Lord of Blois, rather than his own moral scruples.

The under-employed coroner and his officer slept on for almost an hour before they were rudely awakened by an urgent rapping on the street door. Osanna came grumbling from the yard to answer it, but Gwyn had already yawned his way to lift the latch and peer out. It was the same young page who had brought them messages to their chamber in the palace.

‘Sir John, you are required urgently at the Exchequer!’ he gabbled excitedly. ‘The Chief Justiciar and the barons are there already and require your presence straight away.’

‘What’s going on, lad?’ muttered de Wolfe, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

‘I don’t rightly know, sir, but two horsemen with an escort of royal guards from the Tower rode in an hour ago. Since then, there’s been a great deal of bustle and commotion around the palace.’

They buckled on their sword belts and strode after the page, who was almost dancing along ahead of them in his eagerness to get them to the riverside. As they went, the coroner and Gwyn tried to guess what the emergency might be. Since they were summoned to the Receipt of the Exchequer building, from which the block of stone had fallen, John felt that it must be something connected with his inquest that morning. However, no amount of mind searching could fathom any reason for such urgency, especially involving Hubert Walter himself. They eventually decided that the most likely cause was that Queen Eleanor had surprised them all by arriving unexpectedly in the Thames, instead of at Portsmouth.

They were very wide of the mark, as they soon learned when they arrived in New Palace Yard. There was much activity around the front of the Great Hall, with half a dozen fine horses being held by ostlers and grooms standing with a trio of soldiers in the uniform of the Tower guards. To their left, towards the riverbank, they saw Ranulf of Abingdon and William Aubrey with the sergeant of the palace guards, the one who had accompanied them on their trip to Winchester. With them were several senior clerks of the Exchequer in their black cassocks, matching the garb of Thomas de Peyne, who stood near them, looking very apprehensive.

‘God’s guts, what’s all this about?’ demanded de Wolfe of his clerk. Before Thomas could answer, one of the Exchequer officials, a grey-haired man with a large paunch, motioned John and the others towards the door to the very building which had been the scene of the fatal accident that morning.

The Receipt of the Exchequer had been built as a result of King Henry’s desire to move the organs of government from Winchester to Westminster. Now the taxes were delivered here in coin by the sheriffs from every county, as well as dues from wool, tin and the many other commodities from which the king reaped an income for the pursuance of his wars.

It was built against the riverside wall of William Rufus’s huge hall, in line with its front. On the opposite side, a similar edifice was being erected for the housing of the increasing number of Treasury clerks and officials.

Inside, John saw that it was a single hall, with a wide gallery all around, reached by two sets of wooden stairs. There were clerks’ desks on both levels, as well as a number of large tables downstairs, which he guessed were used for the receipt of money, though the famous chequered cloths for counting the coins were not in evidence today. Two of the tables had been pushed together and behind them sat a formidable array of nobles and officials.

In the centre sat Archbishop Hubert Walter, obviously in charge of proceedings. He was flanked by some of the senior members of the
Curia Regis
, the King’s Council, and a number of nobles, a few of whom John recognised as Barons of the Exchequer, the royal justices. Eustace, Bishop of Ely and Vice Chancellor was also there, as was Richard fitz Nigel, the Bishop of London and King’s Treasurer.

Simon Basset, the Treasury official who had received the chests at the Tower sat with the two knights who were witnesses to the checking of the inventory. Along the sides of the tables sat the Keeper of the Palace, the Constable of the Tower, and the Deputy Marshal, Martin Stanford, who represented William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, who was at present across the Channel, escorting Queen Eleanor.

Having taken all this in, de Wolfe knew that something was seriously amiss, to require such a panoply of senior ministers to be gathered together in such urgency. For a moment he feared that news of King Richard’s death might have arrived, but such a tragic event would not have been announced in the Exchequer chamber.

A moment later, he was made uneasy when the Keeper, Nathaniel de Levelondes, abruptly motioned for de Wolfe, the two Marshalsea knights, Gwyn, Thomas and the sergeant of the guard, to stand in a line before the tables. There were no benches for them and John felt as if they were being arraigned before a panel of justices at the bar of a court.