De Wolfe scowled at his clerk.
‘What’s this got to do with anything, for God’s sake?’
At the mention of the ultimate name, Thomas jerked automatically into crossing himself, but then ploughed on with his explanation. ‘Robin has just found a scrap of parchment tucked behind the back cover of the book, which has worried him so much that he feels it should be shown to someone in authority.’
‘What does this scrap reveal?’
Thomas turned up his hands in a gesture of ignorance. ‘I’ve not seen it, Crowner. Robin, who is quite solicitous about my welfare, says he doesn’t want to put me in any danger by involving me. But I told him he must show it to you, so he’s bringing it over to our chamber in the palace tomorrow morning after Lauds.’
The expected revelation turned out to be a disappointment.
When the aspiring young priest arrived at their office next day, he was clutching a small, tattered book as if it was the Holy Grail. The illiterate coroner motioned to Thomas to have a look at it and whilst he was doing so de Wolfe had a question for Robin Byard.
‘Did Basil say anything to you about this loose page in the book?’
The young fellow shook his head miserably. ‘Not a word! I feel sure that he came across it after he had told me of overhearing this seditious conversation. In fact, I think he found it shortly before he was so cruelly killed.’ He promptly burst into tears, to John’s profound discomfiture, so the coroner turned back to his clerk.
‘Well, what do you make of it?’ he demanded.
‘It’s a well-used copy of a Gospel, one of a cheap version turned out for sale by the hundred in monastery scriptoria.’
‘I don’t care about the damned Gospel,’ snapped John blasphemously. ‘What about this message?’
Thomas held up a ragged square of parchment, the size of his palm. ‘Not very exciting,’ he said with a crestfallen expression.
‘It has some names and numbers and a date at the top, that’s about all.’
The coroner snatched it from his fingers and though he could not read the words, he could decipher the numerals written on the cured sheepskin. Even to his inexpert eyes, the inked letters seemed fresh and crisp. It was obviously not a letter or a message, the words being scattered about the page almost at random. He handed it back to Thomas.
‘So what do you make of it?’
Thomas peered again at the parchment, moving it up and down until his long nose almost touched the surface.
‘It was recently written, as it starts with a date. The eighteenth day of June in the seventh year of the reign of King Richard.’
John frowned. ‘That suggests that whoever wrote it was not a subject of our Crown. It is usual for words such as “our Sovereign Lord King Richard” to be used.’
Thomas nodded his agreement, though privately he felt that this was not a very safe assumption in informal documents.
‘It then has various words dotted around the page, as if they were written hurriedly or in difficult circumstances. They make little sense to me, but some are placenames. There is Sandwich, Dover, Rye and Saltwood. Some have numbers after them, including one-hundred, two-hundred, and one of five hundred. But after Dover there is only the word “twelve”.’
‘What are the other words?’
‘They seem to be personal names — Arundel, de Montfort, Mowbray, fitz Gilbert.’
There was silence as they all digested these obscure facts.
‘Robin, are those words written in your friend’s hand?’ asked de Wolfe.
The secondary immediately shook his head. Sniffing back his tears, he said, ‘Nothing like it, sir. He had immaculate script, of which he was proud. These are just scribbles compared to his.’
Gwyn, with his maritime knowledge from his time as a fisherman, pointed out the obvious. ‘All those places are on the coast, most of them actual ports.’
‘And on the coast of Kent or Sussex,’ added Thomas, not to be outdone by a Cornish barbarian. ‘And the names sound as if they could be manor-lords.’
De Wolfe rubbed his chin, missing the stubble that he had recently removed. ‘It’s suggestive of some interest in the coast facing France,’ he admitted. ‘But what do the numbers mean?’
‘Could they be ships of war?’ said Gwyn. ‘There are twelve at Dover.’
‘There would hardly be five hundred ships at Rye!’ objected Thomas.
‘Then ships or men-at-arms,’ suggested Gwyn, determined not to be bested by the priest.
The coroner ignored their banter, but agreed that this could be some form of intelligence about coastal defences. ‘But where did this Basil fellow get it? And more importantly, who wrote it?’
‘Given what he said to me about overhearing suspicious conversation, and the fact that he spent almost all his time in the palace guest chambers, that seems the most likely place for him to have found it,’ offered Robin Byard.
As Thomas handed him back the precious Gospel, John carefully folded the piece of parchment into his scrip. ‘I’ll have to show this to Hubert Walter, though I’m sure he has other things on his mind at the moment.’ As he did up the buckle to his pouch, another possibility occurred to him.
‘And maybe I’ll use it as a bluff to flush out the culprits!’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
De Wolfe was unable to consult the Chief Justiciar that day, as Hubert had gone early into the city and according to one of his secretaries, would spend the night at the Tower. John thought facetiously that he might be putting Herbert de Mandeville to the torture, to get him to confess to the theft of the treasure, but in reality he knew that Herbert was an unlikely culprit.
Late in the afternoon, as John was crossing New Palace Yard, he stopped to contemplate the small landing stage and to wonder whether he would ever discover who killed Basil of Reigate there. A moment later, he realized that a wherry was landing two familiar figures, Renaud de Seigneur and his beautiful wife.
His instinct was to walk quickly away, but he was too late as Hawise waved gaily to him and John had to stand his ground until they came up to him. In the cooler weather since the storm, she was wearing a light mantle over her gown of cream linen. Her dark hair was confined by a silver net into tight coils over each ear, over which was thrown a diaphanous veil of white samite.
He bowed his head in greeting as they approached. ‘I trust you are recovered, lady,’ he said stiffly. ‘We heard at supper last evening that you were indisposed.’
Hawise gave him a dazzling smile, which banished any awkwardness that John had feared. ‘I am quite well, Sir John, thank you. My husband has taken me on a trip on the river today, for the fresh air to banish any remnants of my problems.’
John hoped silently that for her sake they had gone upriver, as the Thames was strikingly short of fresh air where it passed through the odorous city.
Out of courtesy, he walked with them across the busy yard towards the main doors into the palace, behind the Great Hall. Renaud was full of the visit of the old queen and of their impending departure for Gloucester. Hawise walked between the two men and was able to give John sultry looks without de Seigneur noticing — or if he did, he chose to ignore them. De Wolfe remained polite but wooden-faced and when they reached the crowded main ground-floor passage, she managed to drop back a little and whisper to him.
‘John, I need you! I’m desperate for your arms, we must meet!’
Thankfully, they were now at the foot of the stairs leading up to his chamber and he adroitly turned sideways on to the lower steps. ‘I trust you will be in the Lesser Hall this evening,’ he said in a loud voice and Renaud turned to wave at him. John could not resist winking at Hawise and was rewarded with a brilliant smile. His feet seemed lighter as he climbed the stairs, but again, that cautious voice deep within him told him not to be such a silly old fool.