The Justiciar smiled. ‘A picturesque fable, John! There was no mystery about where he was confined, right from the start. Emperor Henry even wrote a letter to Philip Augustus within days of his capture, giving the details. I have a copy in this very room, for they proudly bandied the news all over Europe.’
‘So where is our lord now?’ asked Gwyn.
‘He’s been shuttled about from Ochsenfurt to Speyer, where he was tried in March, though there he turned the tables on Henry and Philip by gaining the sympathy and support of many of the Emperor’s rebellious princes and bishops. After that he was in Trifels Castle, then Hagenau, but is now at the royal court in Mainz. We are still trying to get a definite date for his release, but that bloody man Philip of France keeps trying to bribe Henry to hand him over to him.’ His face darkened. ‘And our Prince John is colluding with the French in that! Between them they offered the Emperor eighty thousand silver marks for our king.’
The mention of the prince gave John an opening for the second reason for his audience with the Chief Justiciar. Once more he pulled out the ring and gave it to Hubert Walter. ‘I came across a murdered man last week, sire. His body was thrown into a river after his throat had been cut. This was the only identification upon him, he had been robbed of everything else including his money.’
With a puzzled expression, Hubert took the ring and turned it in his fingers until he saw the engravings. He looked up quizzically at de Wolfe. ‘Unless he had stolen this from someone, he must have been one of our court couriers. You say his body was found in Devonshire?’
As John confirmed this, Hubert rang a small bell that stood on his desk and immediately, the chaplain came in from the outer room. As he bent over the archbishop, Hubert murmured something in a low voice and the priest nodded and went out again.
‘I’ve started some enquiries — we have a number of men who travel discreetly around the country, taking messages and collecting information. Our present concern is naturally Prince John and his supporters. After his rebellion was defeated earlier this year, he agreed to a truce, but he’s not to be trusted.’
‘Is this dead man one of yours, then?’ asked John.
‘I’ve sent to find out who was down in the West Country — and you say you think he had been as far as Cornwall, so possibly he has been seeking information about St Michael’s Mount, which Henry de la Pomeroy holds on behalf of Prince John.’ He rose from his chair again. ‘It will take some time for my clerks to discover who this might be, so return here tomorrow when I hope to have some news for you. This unfortunate man deserves to have a name on his grave, if nothing else — and I might have a task for you as well.’
After their days in the saddle, John de Wolfe and Gwyn were happy to have some rest and after returning to their inn, had a good meal of fried bacon, eggs and black pudding, washed down with a quart of ale. As they sat looking out of the unshuttered window at the crowded Royal Way outside, Gwyn wondered what ‘task’ the Chief Justiciar might give them.
‘We are fortunate to be on such easy terms with the man who runs England,’ he said. ‘I still find it hard to believe that all this has happened to me in the past year or two, being just a rough soldier from Cornwall.’
John punched him on the arm, which had muscles like iron. ‘Don’t underestimate yourself, man! Hubert can see a trustworthy fellow when he sees one. I’ll warrant he’ll want us to find out why this courier died and who killed him. With no sheriff in the county, who else can do it? And if it was because he was poking about in John’s affairs, then the last thing the prince will want is some investigation.’
The Cornishman grunted. ‘That’s probably why Richard de Revelle shows such a lack of interest, though being such a lazy swine, it’s hard to pin any motive on what he does or doesn’t do.’
They spent a couple of hours or so wandering around Westminster and along the river towards the city, then came back for more food, drink and an early bed.
‘If Hubert finishes his business with us in the morning, we can be back on the road again later in the day — and home in Exeter within the week,’ said John. He realized that he missed his lodgings in the Bush, especially the company of Nesta and he looked forward with foreboding to having to settle down in a house with Matilda.
Early next day, they were back at the palace to resume their meeting with the Justiciar. He was at an early Mass in St Stephen’s Chapel, the palace’s place of worship, but eventually arrived and they were ushered into his presence again by Brother Roland.
Hubert Walter was looking more haggard today, weighed down by the strain of both running a country and finding a vast sum of money to pay for the king’s release. A hundred and fifty thousand marks was the equivalent of thirty tons of silver, two or three times the annual income of England. ‘It’s being collected by the special Ransom Exchequer and stored in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral,’ he had explained to them the previous day, but now he wanted to tell them about the corpse in the River Exe.
‘He was Roger Smale, a former soldier working in the Chancery. As I suspected, he was sent down to Cornwall with messages for the constable of Launceston Castle, but also to spy out the situation at St Michael’s Mount, fortified for the prince. Since the truce, he has not been attacked by us, but the Curia wanted to know if the stronghold was being further strengthened in preparation for future conflict.’
De Wolfe recalled the horrific wound to the man’s throat which had half-severed his neck. ‘He must have found out something, for them to dispatch him so brutally,’ he said.
The Justiciar shrugged. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it now, but I wonder why he was killed in Devon and not Cornwall.’
‘Perhaps he found out other things as well. John’s cause has sympathizers in Devon, as we know.’ Some trace of family loyalty caused him to refrain from mentioning his brother-in-law, though he suspected that Hubert knew of all the potential adherents in that part of the country, especially as some of Exeter’s twenty-four canons were known to side with Bishop Hugh of Coventry.
‘We have lost one agent who seems have known his way around the West Country,’ went on Hubert. ‘So I am going to ask you to continue the faithful service that you have already given to our Lord King, by keeping your eyes and ears open for any other evidence of the prince’s treachery. He had most of his castles taken from him back in February, when he kept claiming that the king was dead and that he was now on the throne, but he has refused to hand over Nottingham or Tickhill and is covertly provisioning them for a future battle. As I said before, we have a so-called truce, but that is really a waiting game to see what happens over the Lionheart’s release.’
John and Gwyn readily agreed to his request, being happy to have some further way of serving the king, partly to assuage their consciences over their failure to prevent his capture. They arranged to forward any information via Ralph Morin, who had regular messengers going between the royal castle and Westminster. They took their leave of the archbishop, Gwyn still awed by their familiarity, which seemed far stranger here than in the common danger and discomfort of Palestine. Soon they were in the saddle again, riding west, with at least a name to give John de Alencon to read over the new grave in the cathedral precinct.
They arrived at the Bush, wet and weary, over a week later. The weather had turned bad and the roads were thick with mud, slowing them down and adding an extra day to their journey. The horses had been returned to their stables and the two travellers arrived on foot at the door of the inn, where Brutus was waiting to greet his master, having again used the mysterious powers of a dog to anticipate John’s return. Nesta, equally delighted to see them safe and sound, rushed around to get them hot food and to take John’s riding cloak to dry in the wash-shed outside. Gwyn had his usual leather jerkin and hood, which he threw carelessly over a stool to drip into the rushes.