The Guildhall was in High Street, not many yards from the turning into Martin's Lane. It was newly built in stone, one of the grandest buildings in the city, as befitted the home of the many merchant guilds and the place where the burgesses held their council. In a lane behind it was a small thatched hut left by the stonemasons, which had been appropriated as their shelter by Osric and his fatter colleague, Theobald.
John thrust open the rickety door and went into the shed, almost bare but for two old stools and a bench on which were some cups and pots. Neither of the constables was there, but Gwyn pointed to a jumble of cloth on a shelf nailed to the wall.
'That's the stuff, Crowner. Have a look at this.' He unrolled the clothing on the bench and John saw a long yellow tunic of good-quality cloth, together with a surcoat of blue serge. They were both muddy, but more significantly the areas around the neck and upper chest were stiff with dark dried blood.
De Wolfe felt the material between his finger and thumb. 'Good stuff, though not showy. If this did belong to our corpse, then he was no common labourer, as I thought from the state of his hands.' Gwyn nodded sagely. 'But neither does he seem some foppish fellow with more money than sense. There's no fancy embroidery on the tunic and the surcoat has no brocade or velvet frippery.'
The coroner stood staring down at the soiled garments. 'But no belt, dagger, hose or shoes — nor a pouch or purse.'
'Smells like a robbery to me,' grunted his officer.
'But why take his clothes off and hide them?'
'To confound or certainly delay us putting a name to him,' snapped de Wolfe. 'It's the merest chance that those urchins and their dog found this stuff.' Gwyn remained unimpressed by their luck. 'Doesn't help much unless we find someone who knows him and knows what he was wearing!'
His master shrugged and turned to the door. 'Let's see what tomorrow brings. You can tell Osric to take that stuff down to the Watergate. It may as well stay with the body, in case we find someone who can have a look at them both.'
With that, he strode off towards his house, ready to face both Mary's duck and his wife's dour company.
Everyone in the city seemed to be up and about even earlier than usual the next morning. Even before broke, there were people milling around the five gates, impatiently waiting for them to open. As soon as the porters pulled back the massive oaken doors, there was a scramble in both directions, though most waiting to spill out, especially at South Gate, as the was centred on Southernhay, the expanse of meadows and gardens beyond the south-east wall of Exeter.
Those coming in were the usual crowd who daily brought provisions to the shops and stalls, pushing barrows of vegetables, wicker crates of fowls and ducks, carrying baskets of eggs and freshly caught fish. Others were adding to the confusion by driving pigs, sheep and cattle to the slaughterers in the Shambles at the top of Southgate Street.
Today, however, many merchants were going out to the booths they had erected in Southernhay, to draw in as much profit as they could from the fair. Some were Exeter burgesses and craftsmen, but there were also many strangers who had arrived early and stayed in the city overnight. Some had come from as far afield as London, Lincoln and Chester — and there were even a few who had taken ship from Cologne and Flanders, drawn by the reputation of the October fair. This year, it was an even greater attraction, as the one-day jousting tournament meant that even more people would be attending, some of them wealthy knights and squires who might be persuaded to part with their money more liberally than the cautious townsfolk and peasantry.
John de Wolfe was also up early, determined as a senior law officer to play his part in keeping the peace, especially as he knew that the new sheriff was unlikely to be exerting himself in this direction. The coroner also wanted to see what could be discovered about the previous day's murder — even if there was little hope of catching the culprits, it was essential to try to put a name to the victim, for the sake of his family.
John threw aside the sheepskin coverlets and climbed naked from his feather-filled mattress, set on a low plinth of the floor of-the solar, leaving Matilda snoring on the other side. The previous evening she had been subdued and uncommunicative after returning from her devotions, which John rightly attributed tO the induction of a new sheriff, reminding her again of her brother's fall from grace. After a silent meal, Matilda had retired upstairs for Lucille's ministrations to her hair, then gone to bed. John had slipped out to the Bush and had a satisfactory hour in the new loft, coming home before the cathedral bells rang for midnight matins.
Now he was ready for the new day, and in honour of the fair he pulled out his second-best grey tunic from the heavy chest that held his few clothes. He pulled on his long hose and tied the laces to the under-belt around his waist before shaking down the skirt of his long tunic and buckling on his wide leather belt, complete with scrip pouch at the front and sheathed dagger at the back.
Slipping into house shoes, he opened the solar door and shivered slightly at the chill morning breeze that was chasing dark clouds across the sky. Once down the wooden steps, he made for the cook house and soon was tucking into oatmeal gruel with milk and honey.
By the time he had spooned this down, Mary had a manchet of yesterday's bread for him, piled with three eggs and a thick slab of bacon fried in butter. Half a small loaf and a pint of her own ale completed his breakfast, and soon he was squatting in the odorous privy at the end o£ the yard, before making for the vestibule to pull on his boots.
As he reached for his mottled wolfskin cape to throw over his shoulders, Brutus came loping around the corner from the yard. The big brown dog beseechingly at his master.
'Come on, then, but behave yourself,' he grunted.
'There'll be a lot of horses down there, so keep from under their hoofs!'
John's first destination was the tourney ground at Bull Mead, just beyond Southernhay. As an older and very experienced warrior, he had been asked to act as one of the judges for the contests the following day and, having agreed, wanted to have a look at the arrangements beforehand.
As he walked through the early morning bustle in the streets and lanes, he thought about the amount of organisation that these fairs entailed. The financial returns to the city and its burgesses must be well worth the effort, he mused, as weeks of work preceded each of the four major fairs every year. Because Exeter was a free chartered city, there was no lord to monopolise them, so the fairs were controlled by the two portreeves — his friend Hugh de Relaga and Henry Rifford, a wealthy leather merchant. Together with leading burgesses and guildmasters, they set up a committee, and this delegated all the hard work to others. Clerks dispensed permits to trade at the fair and collected the substantial fees, some of which had to be paid to the King's treasury under the terms of their charter.
Builders and carpenters erected all the booths and the fencing for the tourney ground. Arrangements had to be made with the sheriff and the castle constable for men-at-arms to patrol the fairground and attempt 'to keep some order. Though the substantial ecclesiastical community had no direct part to play — and officially the Church disapproved of jousting activities — they were not reluctant to accept the extra donations and alms from the many visitors who came to gape at their grand new cathedral and leave offerings at the many altars and shrines, as well as paying for Masses to be said for the souls of their relatives.
As the coroner pushed his way through the throng at the South Gate, he appreciated anew the massive increase in population that this week had brought. He hoped that there would not be a similar increase in crime during the next three days. Drunkenness, fights, brawls and assaults were inevitable, but he prayed that there would not be too many deaths for him to deal with, though yesterday's corpse was a poor beginning.