The Tinner's Corpse (27 page)

As they reached the rope, they were joined by a harassed-looking Sergeant Gabriel, who raised his hand in a stiff salute. ‘God’s breath, Crowner, this place is a cross between the May Fair and the battle of Arsuf!’ He was an old Crusader, too, and a strong bond of mutual respect had formed between the three men. De Wolfe gave the flustered soldier one of his rare grins. ‘What’s the problem, sergeant?’

‘The traders and hawkers want to sell anything to anybody. You – begging your pardon, sir – want to hold an inquest. Half the tinners want their bars coined and the other half want to attack the sheriff.’

Gwyn gave his friend a playful punch on the shoulder, which sent him staggering. ‘You should be happy, then, lad! Especially with the last part.’

Gabriel, a devoted royalist like de Wolfe, had no time for Richard de Revelle, but as the sheriff was his master, he had to keep his feelings well hidden.

‘Then the sooner we get this inquest out of the way the better,’ said the coroner.

Gabriel nodded. ‘The bailiff has rounded up a score of men for the jury – you said it was pointless fetching any from outside Chagford so they’re all locals, a few tinners among them.’

Gwyn went off to shepherd the jurymen into the enclosure, as John spotted a wedge of men-at-arms pushing through the crowd at the top of the square, making a way for two figures on horseback. They were Richard de Revelle and his constable, Ralph Morin, who alighted alongside him, leaving their steeds to be taken away by a soldier. Already the noise in the marketplace had changed in quality, with a growling tone and frank catcalls as the many tinners noticed the sheriff’s arrival.

‘Good day, brother-in-law,’ greeted the coroner. ‘I see you’ve not worn your chain-mail … Let’s hope that was not a mistake!’

The sheriff glowered at him and looked apprehensively around at the crowd. Many were staring at him aggressively and a few shook their fists at him, before melting away behind their fellows.

‘Damned rabble!’ muttered de Revelle, under his breath. ‘I trust you’ll not be holding up the start of my coinage too long, with this inquest of yours.’

‘Here’s the corpse now,’ reported Gabriel, as again his men forced a path through the throng, this time for a procession coming from the church. Four of Knapman’s overmen were carrying a bier, a device of dark oak that resembled a short wide ladder. Normally, it hung from the rafters at the back of the church, to remind folk of their mortality, but today it bore the shrouded body of Walter. Walking behind were the widow Joan, her mother and brother, Paul Smithson, Matthew Knapman and Peter Jordan, followed by Harold the steward and most of Knapman’s other servants.

At the enclosure, the bier was set down on a pair of trestles and the jury filed behind it, stepping over the surrounding ropes. Thomas de Peyne, who had handed over the horses to one of Gabriel’s men, came in with his writing bag and set up his pen and parchment on an empty cask, though there was little enough to be recorded in this particular case. As the crowd pressed in all around the temporary shelter, some sad, many angry and yet more indifferently curious, Gwyn yelled out his customary summons to attend the King’s coroner.

The sheriff and Ralph Morin stood to one side as de Wolfe went through a routine similar to that he had conducted over the headless body of Henry of Tunnaford. He dispensed with presentment of Englishry and again relieved the townsfolk by disregarding the murdrum fine. This time, the duty of the jury to examine the fatal wounds was less gory than before: they had only to file past the bier and look at the head wound and the back. Gwyn hauled the body on to its side, displaying the double-tracked bruise, which was now more prominent after death, though somewhat blurred by the staining where the blood in the body had sunk to the lowest level of the back. The two women were standing at one end of the bier and were spared this, as well as the sight of a tinge of green in the flanks.

There was little else to be said, and ten minutes later de Wolfe stood in front of the now covered corpse to give his views to the jurymen.

‘The purpose of this inquisition is to determine who the deceased was, and where, when and by what means he came to his death. His brother Matthew has identified the cadaver to spare his widow, and we all know it is that of Walter Knapman, tin-master of this town. Where he met his death is unknown, but from the presence of his horse near Stepford Mill, it must have taken place somewhere near there. However, I think it futile to bring the nearest vill, Dunsford, into the enquiry. Neither is it sensible to involve Teignmouth, where my officer, Gwyn of Polruan, has sworn it was found, in the presence of myself.’

He paused to sweep his eyes sternly over the jury. ‘The means of death is clear, in that the severe wound on the head, which you have all seen, either killed him directly or rendered him insensible, so that when he was cast into the river, he drowned. Either way it led to his death. You may then ask, was it caused by an accident, a fall from his horse on to stony ground?’

De Wolfe again glared around at his jury, as was his habit, defying them to contradict him.

‘If that was so, it cannot explain how he came to be in the river, instead of on the earth. The chance of falling from a horse directly into deep water and hitting his head seems remote.’

He scowled again along the line of faces. ‘Such a chance is abolished when you look at his back, where undoubtedly he has been smitten heavily by a staff or pike handle – the reason for his fall from his horse.’

Folding his arms under his wolfskin cloak, he walked along the line of jurors, his great beak of a nose thrust out towards them, shoulders hunched and lank black hair twisting over his collar in the cold breeze. ‘We have no club, no knife, no axe. Nothing as an instrument of death for me to declare deodand. But it is obvious that this was murder. Now deliver me your verdict, so that the facts, sparse though they are, may be recorded for the King’s justices – for that is why I am here, the
custos placitorum coronae
, keeper of the pleas of the Crown. If we discover the perpetrator of this evil deed, he will face the royal judges and be dealt with accordingly.’

As de Wolfe said this, he cast a sidelong glance at the sheriff, who scowled back, well aware that the coroner was taunting him with their endless dispute about jurisdiction over serious crimes.

At Gwyn’s prompting, the jury had a hurried consultation among themselves, and within a minute or two, the one Gwyn had ‘volunteered’ as foreman stepped forward. ‘We agree that he was murdered, Crowner,’ he said shortly.

De Wolfe nodded – he would have accepted no other response. ‘My verdict is that Walter Knapman was slain unlawfully and against the King’s peace by persons unknown, on the eleventh day of April in the sixth year of the reign of our sovereign lord King Richard.’

There was a sudden sense of anticlimax as the jury slunk away and the body was marched off on its bier to the church. The crowd around the enclosure, who had been muted while the inquest was in progress, returned to full volume, though the shouted abuse and jeers at the sheriff had subsided, mainly due to a number of men-at-arms sent into the crowd by Sergeant Gabriel to threaten any malcontents.

Richard de Revelle moved across to John as the covered space emptied. ‘That achieved little,’ he sneered. ‘I still fail to see why the Chief Justiciar bothered to revive this old ritual.’

‘It achieved little because there was little to achieve. It’s your task as keeper of the King’s peace, Richard, to seek out wrongdoers in the county of Devon. You discover the killers of old Henry and Walter Knapman and I’ll see that they come, fully recorded, before the King’s justices.’ They had been over this ground so often that de Wolfe could not be bothered to pursue it.

Failing to provoke his brother-in-law on that score, the sheriff tried another subject. ‘I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that Theobald Fitz-Ivo is doing sterling work in his new role as coroner. I have had good reports of him already. He has attended several hangings in Barnstaple and a mutilation in Lydford, all satisfactorily recorded by his bailiff.’

De Wolfe grunted, reluctant to acknowledge that the fat knight had any merit whatsoever. ‘But has he held a difficult inquest yet? Has he taken confessions from sanctuary-seekers or approvers?’

De Revelle gave the coroner one his patronising smiles. ‘Give the man time, John, he’s been in office only for the blinking of an eyelid. You were too ready with your criticisms and you should be more than happy that he has lightened your load. Matilda will be pleased, no doubt – you will be able to stay at your fireside and keep her company more often,’ he added, with a snigger: he knew only too well the true relationship between his sister and her husband.

Again, de Wolfe refused to rise to de Revelle’s mischievous bait. ‘I’ll leave you here to play at being Lord Warden, Richard,’ he replied evenly. ‘I need to go to the church now, to attend the disposal of Walter Knapman. One never knows what intelligence may be picked up on such occasions – and one of us has to try to find his killer.’

He collected Gwyn and Thomas, leaving the horses with Gabriel’s minion, and they walked to St Michael’s to stand at the back of the church, which was filled with mourners come to see off their well-known townsman. The corpse was now in a coffin at the foot of the chancel steps, and through the rood screen Paul Smithson could dimly be seen preparing the Host for the requiem mass.

When the parish priest came to the opening in the screen to commune with the congregation, de Wolfe became conscious of a stream of Latin being whispered just behind him and turned to see Thomas, with tears dribbling from his eyes, reciting the Office word for word with the priest. Once again, the coroner wondered at the intense emotion the ecclesiastical life engendered in his little clerk and he worried again for the man’s mental stability. He only hoped that John de Alençon would be able to do something to alleviate Thomas’s abject misery.

As the service droned on, Gwyn became restive and soon slipped away – de Wolfe suspected to the Crown alehouse across the road. Eventually, when the mass was over, the congregation trooped out to follow the coffin to a newly dug grave where, with due solemnity, the tin-master of Chagford was laid to his final rest.

Joan had reverted to a black gown and cloak, which contrasted sharply with the snow-white cover-chief and wimple around her head and face. As silent as ever, she acted the part of the bereaved widow admirably, though Thomas outdid her in tears. De Wolfe noticed that Stephen Acland was absent, either from discretion or because he wanted to be at the coinage, which would have started by now.

At the churchyard gate, the elegant widow courteously invited de Wolfe to the house for refreshments, but he declined, pleading that he had to return to the square to talk to the sheriff, though in fact he wanted to observe the coinage procedure. ‘And then I will be off to Exeter. God knows what problems may have accumulated there by now.’

At this, Matthew asked if he and Peter Jordan could ride back to the city with the coroner, both for company and to allay their uneasiness when going through the Dunsford area where Walter had been attacked: Matthew now claimed to favour outlaws as the culprits, rather than tinners. De Wolfe readily agreed, thinking that he might learn something useful during the few hours’ journey.

After promising to call back at the house in an hour or two, he walked with Thomas back to the square, where the rough enclosure was the centre of even more activity than before. Gwyn was already there, after a quick quart in the nearest tavern, so they pushed their way through to the shelter and stepped over the rope for a closer view of the proceedings.

Richard de Revelle was standing with Gabriel, Ralph Morin and two guards close by. For the moment, the tinners had given up their sneers and abuse, concerned with the coinage ritual, which meant the prospect of a cash return on weeks or months of hard work on the moor.

A line of men had formed along the length of the shelter, each standing or squatting alongside their pile of black tin, which they had carried across from carts, barrows or panniers. As each man was dealt with by the coinage officials, he vacated his place and someone else brought in his load of bars. Over half the total came from the workings of Knapman or Acland, but the procedure was the same: their employees did the fetching and carrying on a shuttle system from the large stocks standing at the side of the square.

Gwyn, who had seen the system operating in Cornwall, explained what was going on. ‘That’s the assay master, who is in charge of the whole proceedings,’ he muttered, pointing at a grey-bearded man dressed in a brown tunic and grey hose with cross-gartering down to his stout shoes. He wore a close-fitting black cap, tied under his chin with tapes, and round his neck hung a chain of refined tin with a large medallion denoting his official status. ‘The others are the Steward, who is responsible for the register, the Receiver and the Controller, with their pair of clerks. They all have to read and write, for the weight of each bar has to be agreed by them all and written down against the name of the owner and the quality of the metal.’

De Wolfe noticed that the Controller, a stocky man in a long leather apron, was fiddling with a large steel-yard suspended from one of the roof beams. It was a weighing scales, with one short arm carryinga flat pan and a longer arm from which hung a smaller weight-pan that could be slid back and forth on the yard. ‘His main concern is that King’s beam,’ explained Gwyn. ‘He brings it here with a sealed box of weights that has been checked by the mint in Winchester.’

The assay team worked with brisk efficiency, born of years of practice. John watched as the Steward went to a fresh applicant at the rope and dictated his name to the clerk, who allotted simple code letters to the tinner, usually based on his initials. The Receiver, another grizzled veteran in a leather apron, took the bars over the rope and rapidly impressed the code on to the soft metal with a hammer and set of dies. Then he handed them up in quick succession to the Controller, who weighed them on the beam, had it checked by the Steward and called out the result to the clerk, who entered it on his roll. The bar was passed quickly to the assay master, who squatted on a small milking stool before a large log of hard oak, which acted as an anvil. With a hammer and small chisel, he dextrously knocked off a small corner of the bar, exposing the shinier grey tin underneath. Immediately, he exchanged the chisel for dies and struck two other impressions on the bar, one the King’s mark of a couchant lion, and another a set of dots, the purpose of which was incomprehensible to de Wolfe.