De Wolfe paused between spoonfuls. ‘We’ve not made much progress with the last one yet!’ he growled. ‘Looks as if the palace stabbing will remain a mystery for ever, unless we get some better information.’
After they had finished everything that Osanna had produced, they refilled their ale-pots and sat back in a companionable silence. John wondered how far down the Thames estuary the St Radegund had reached and prayed for a safe journey for them back to Devon. The sea was a treacherous beast and each voyage was a risky adventure, which was why every ship’s crew sang the traditional hymn of thanks to the Virgin Mary when they reached port safely.
Eventually, they stirred themselves from their postprandial torpor which the returning heat had encouraged. They made their way back to the bare chamber in the palace, where they found Thomas. He was reading his Vulgate of St Jerome, his most treasured possession, which by now he must surely have known off by heart. He had already heard of the latest murder and like Gwyn he was disappointed to hear that they were not to take on the case. The Westminster grapevine must have been working overtime, as he already knew the name of the victim.
‘He was called Osbert Morel and had a workshop at the back of his dwelling in Duck Lane,’ he announced. ‘A widower, he lived alone and was said to be a solitary, secretive sort of fellow.’
De Wolfe once again marvelled at Thomas’s capacity to trawl up information in the shortest possible time.
‘You don’t happen to know who killed him and with what?’ he asked, but the sarcasm was lost on the little priest.
‘One of the proctors told me that there was blood on the ground in his yard and drips going through the gate at the back. There was still money in his scrip and his house-chest, so it can’t have been a robbery.’
‘Must have happened during the night,’ said Gwyn. ‘No one could have dragged a body covered in blood for a couple of furlongs in broad daylight.’
De Wolfe shrugged. ‘It’s none of my business now. He was nothing to do with the palace or the abbey, so the bloody city men are welcome to him. Let’s hope they have better luck than we’ve had so far.’
A little later, they had a visit from Ranulf of Abingdon, who brought a welcome skin of red Loire wine to share with them.
‘We need some fluid to fortify ourselves. It’s as hot as hell itself over those stables,’ he complained. His bachelor quarters were in the Marshalsea, the long block of wooden buildings that housed both horses and the men who were responsible for all palace transport.
When Gwyn had produced some pewter cups from a shelf, they settled to drink and gossip, which Thomas joined in again with his tale of the murder in Duck Lane. Ranulf shook his head in wonderment. ‘Two mysterious killings in little more than a week,’ he observed sadly. ‘Apart from a few drunken brawls, I can’t recall another slaying in Westminster in the whole time I’ve been here.’
John wondered once again why he had been saddled with being Coroner of the Verge, as there seemed little need for one, unless things were different once the court went on the move.
As if reading his mind, Ranulf came out with his own piece of news.
‘A herald came up from Portsmouth today with the news that Queen Eleanor has left Rouen for Honfleur. Depending upon the weather, a king’s ship is expected to arrive with her in about a week’s time. We have to be prepared to be on the move soon after that.’
They discussed the arrangements as the wineskin emptied, as all this was new to John. Ranulf, as an under-marshal, was used to the perambulations of Hubert Walter’s court, even though these were less frequent now that the king was abroad.
‘We lodge each night at some convenient place, preferably a castle or a royal house,’ he explained. ‘This time it will no doubt be Windsor, Reading, Newbury, Marlborough, Chippenham and then Bristol. The old lady wants to get to Gloucester, then probably back here through Oxford, to take ship again at Portsmouth.’
De Wolfe rasped at his black stubble with his fingers. ‘That journey will take a devil of a time, given all the carts with the impedimenta of the court! I doubt we’ll cover more than twelve or fifteen miles a day.’
‘We’ll be away for a few weeks, that’s for sure,’ agreed Ranulf.
‘If they stop at Bristol for a few days, maybe we can get away to Devon?’ suggested Gwyn hopefully.
When the wine was finished, the marshal reluctantly made his way back to the stables, saying that he had better have the wagons checked for the coming long journey. After the failure of their wheel-hub on the recent trip from Winchester, de Wolfe considered this was a wise precaution. After Ranulf had left, the coroner’s trio felt pleasantly drowsy, given the wine and the growing heat and Gwyn was soon snoring noisily, slumped with his head in his arms on the window ledge. Thomas continued to read, though he felt his eyelids droop, even over the sacred Latin prose of St Jerome. John managed to stay awake, though as he scraped under his fingernails with the point of his dagger, his thoughts wandered from Exeter to the image of the little ship now surely off the north coast of Kent. Then his mind’s eye flew even farther away to Chepstow in Wales, where the memory of Nesta still plagued him, but inevitably returned to Exeter and the little priory of Polsloe, where Matilda was lodged like some brooding bear in a cave.
This sleepy reverie lasted another hour, until it was rudely shattered by the sound of heavy footsteps on the boards of the passage outside the chamber. A tap on the door was abruptly followed by it being flung open, the young page who had conducted the visitor being pushed aside as a large and angry man burst into the room.
As John jerked himself back to the present, he saw it was the other sheriff from the city, Robert fitz Durand, who had been at the meeting with Hubert Walter two days earlier. The wrathful look on his face accentuated the swarthiness of his skin, which almost suggested some Levantine or at least southern European blood. He offered no greeting, but launched straight into a tirade.
‘De Wolfe, have you such a short memory that you already breach the spirit of our agreement, shabby though it was?’ he shouted rudely.
John rose to his feet and with his knuckles on the table, glared at the newcomer. He was almost a head taller that fitz Durand, who was a wiry, but slightly built man, so he stooped to look down at the arrogant sheriff. Gwyn had also risen and lurked menacingly in the background, while the timid clerk had backed away to the wall and watched the scene with trepidation.
The coroner controlled his own quick temper with an effort.
‘Why so ferocious, sheriff? The matter is in your hands. I want no part of it.’
‘No part of it, be damned!’ he bellowed. ‘You went to the corpse, you pulled it about, examined it and sent others to seek more information! Is that not interfering in a case which the Justiciar defined as none of your business?’
De Wolfe held up a hand, which though placatory, he would preferred to have slapped around the other man’s face.
‘Now wait a moment, fitz Durand! Firstly, I was prevailed upon by the abbey prior to view the victim as a matter of urgency. For all we knew then, this unknown man could have been from the palace — and even if he had been an abbey servant, it fell into my jurisdiction by virtue of the abbot’s dispensation.’
‘But he wasn’t either of those, damn it!’ snarled the sheriff. ‘He was a villager and thus a resident of Middlesex, for which county I am responsible.’
‘And how was anyone to know that, if he was face down in a ditch?’ shouted John, losing patience with this blustering knight. ‘As soon as I knew he was not from the palace, I went to the trouble of having a message sent to you immediately by a fast horseman. What more do you want?’
‘You should mind your own business and leave such matters to those who have dealt perfectly well with such events for many years past,’ snapped Robert, now with hands on hips, glaring back at de Wolfe. Thomas nervously thought that they looked like two cockerels squaring up to each other in a barnyard.