‘So you will not contest the right of the Coroner to view?’ Baldwin asked innocently.
The Dean gave him a mild smile which didn’t fool Baldwin for a moment. The knight was quite certain that the Dean had one of the brightest minds in the whole Chapter. Whereas other canons tended to be entirely devoted to their studies, their praying, or their bellies, Dean Alfred was a different man. Used to power, he knew that the most effective means of getting things done as he wished was by ensuring that there were as few interruptions as possible; that meant removing all potential causes of dispute with the city. He was above all a devious, intelligent politician.
‘I didn’t think that the last Coroner would choose to make an enemy of me, and yet he was strangely — ah — determined to impose his will upon me.’
‘He was a good man,’ Baldwin sighed. ‘He’ll be missed.’
‘Aye. I feel you are right. His widow has left the city — did you hear? No? She didn’t come from here originally, and she has gone to Sidmouth, where her brother lives.’
‘Simon too lives on the coast now,’ Baldwin said.
‘Really? And what does he do there?’
They had reached the Dean’s house, and now the Dean stood aside to permit Baldwin to enter.
‘He is the representative of the Abbot at Dartmouth. It is a terrible job, from what he has told me. He dreaded being sent there in the first place, because he was so comfortable with the moors and the ways of the mad devils who live up there, the tinners. I had always thought him so sensible a fellow, too. Yet when he was told that the Abbot would prefer him to go to Dartmouth, I don’t think Simon realised just how confused and difficult the new task would be.’
‘Is it so — ah — terrible?’
Baldwin threw him a sideways look. ‘The traitor.’
‘Oh!’
There was no need to say more. As both knew, no one could afford to pass comment on the recent events in London. The King’s spies might be listening. Yet the whole country knew that the King’s household was living in fear. The Lord Marcher, Roger Mortimer, who had been captured as a traitor for raising arms against Edward after a glittering career in his service, had been thrown into a cell in the Tower of London. Astonishingly, as soon as the sentence of death which was to have been passed on him became known, he was rescued.
Baldwin had no idea how he could have made his escape, but escape he had, and the King’s men were panicked. Messengers were sent to all corners of the realm from Kirkham, where the King was staying when he heard the news. A small host rode to the ports with Ireland, where Mortimer had allies, while all other ports were instructed to check all men trying to leave the shores. That was the first set of instructions. More recently, Baldwin had heard that there were clear signs that the man had escaped and fled the kingdom, passing into France or some similar land.
This could have been cause for celebration in the King’s household, were it not for the fact that Mortimer was reckoned the King’s own best General. If Mortimer could summon a force about his banner, thousands of Englishmen would probably rally to his cry. And there were many disaffected men in Europe waiting for just such a call. Men who had been deprived of their livelihood by the King — or, rather, as Baldwin knew, by his friends, the Despensers.
‘I think that there are many issues for Simon in a good port like Dartmouth,’ Baldwin murmured. ‘Both to guard against men who would leave the country, and to prevent others from entering.’
‘Hmm, I see. Well, at least you are here,’ the Dean said as he grabbed his black tunic and hoisted it up over his lap before sitting. ‘Please, take a seat.’
A servant entered and brought wine and bread with some cheeses. Only when he was gone did the Dean look at Baldwin seriously again.
‘Well, Sir Knight, this is a pretty mess which I have had arrive before me. I am not sure what to do about it.’
The Dean was a lean, ascetic-looking man, once he allowed that habitual expression of amiable confusion and his bumbling manner to drop. This was a man in control of vast estates, as well as one of the largest building projects in the country and many hundreds of men. The Bishop was theoretically in charge, but Bishop Walter was a politician, and he spent most of his time with the King. No, it was the Dean who dealt with all day-to-day matters.
‘Who was the murdered man?’ asked Baldwin, cutting some cheese. ‘Was he to do with the Cathedral?’
‘No. He was a saddler.’
‘And he was found in the Charnel Chapel? How was he killed?’
‘Stabbed. Anyone can find a knife during a dispute.’
Baldwin nodded. ‘And you think that might be what happened?’
‘It’s the only explanation I can think of.’
‘When was he found?’
‘Last thing at night. The porters had locked their gates, and an Annuellar happened to notice that the door to the chapel was open. He tried it, found the body, and called for help.’
‘Did anyone see the saddler enter the Close? You have many gates here.’
‘Janekyn up at the Fissand Gate reckons he might have seen the man enter, but he must see hundreds every day. He couldn’t swear to Henry having passed him yesterday.’
Baldwin ruminatively chewed at a piece of dry bread. ‘There appears little for me to go on. If a tradesman is murdered, any number of men could have killed him — a fellow who felt that he had been unreasonable in a negotiation, a man who wanted to remove a competitor, perhaps a simple cutpurse whose theft went wrong … the possibilities are endless. I don’t honestly know that I can be of much aid.’
‘I should — ah — be most grateful if you could look into the matter nonetheless,’ Dean Alfred said. ‘This body was found on Cathedral land. I don’t want a Coroner to come blundering about my Close, accusing all and sundry of murder, without my trying to discover the truth first.’
‘I should be pleased to do all I can to help the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral,’ Baldwin said with an inclination of his head.
‘Thank you. It would be an unpleasant thing, to have a heavy-booted Coroner galumphing about the place,’ the Dean mused, picking at a chip on his cup. ‘They are — um — rarely conducive to prayer, in my experience.’
William made his way back from the Talbot Inn to the Priory, slipping on a small turd at the entrance to an alley as he cut through towards Water Beer.
‘Damn all brats,’ he muttered, scraping it off, and had to stand still a moment while the shaking overtook him.
He hadn’t always been like this. When he had first gone into battles, he had been scared. Of course he had! No one without a brain could first enter the fray without appreciating his danger. It was one thing to stand face to face with some bastard whose sole desire was to shove an eight-pound lump of sharp metal into your face when you were alone in a road or field, and quite another when the two of you were yelling and screaming at each other with thousands of others on either side. It was only worse when arrows and crossbow bolts rained down on you from the sky, and the roar of massed destriers’ hooves could be felt through the thin leather of your boots and you wondered whether the fuckers were behind you or in front, and you didn’t care, you couldn’t take your eyes off the wanker in front, because as soon as you did, his sword would open you up like a salmon being gutted.
War wasn’t fun. Will could talk a good story, but at the end of it all, a winner was the man who ideally lost marginally fewer men who were still capable of chasing after the enemy and slashing and cutting them to pieces as they tried to flee the field. That side was the winner. And to them went the spoils — which were usually a couple of boxes of coin, which would go nowhere towards satisfying warriors who’d lost their mates in the last mêlée.