De Wolfe came to the edge of the platform to stand over the wretched prisoner. He hovered above him, his arms folded across his chest. ‘Eadric of Alphington, you have been accused of robbing Roger Lamb on the high road near Alphington on the day of St Jude’s fair, taking his purse containing seven shillings’ worth of pennies, making off with his horse and causing a grievous wound to his head that almost killed him.’
The Saxon, a surly-looking man in his late twenties, glared up at the coroner through a mane of dirty blond hair that tangled over his face. ‘I admit I was there, but I had no part in the robbery.’
There was a sigh of impatience from the sheriff, who was tapping his heel restlessly with a short silver-topped staff. ‘Stop this mummery and send the damned fellow to be hanged!’ he muttered audibly.
De Wolfe ignored him and glared back at the prisoner. ‘You claim you wish to turn approver. You cannot do that unless you confess your crime to me.’
‘How can I confess to something I didn’t do?’
De Wolfe shrugged. ‘It’s your choice, fellow. You can go back to your cell and await your trial, if you so wish.’
Faced with the near-certainty of conviction and the gallows, Eadric took but a moment to decide. ‘I can confess to my part in the affair, Crowner, but the others were the real villains.’
With Thomas de Peyne at the table behind them, writing as fast as he could, the coroner intoned the ritual formalities of the confession. Then the bedraggled Saxon grudgingly described how he and two fellow villagers had left the fair considerably the worse for drink. While they were stumbling along the main road between Exeter and Alphington, a merchant overtook them on a bay horse and abused them for getting in his way. According to Eadric’s version, the rider struck one of the others with his whip and a brawl ensued. The merchant was pulled from his horse and hit his head on the road, being rendered unconscious. Eadric claimed that he was a mere spectator of this fracas and protested when his companions, afraid that they had killed the merchant, took his purse and horse and vanished into the trees.
The victim had recovered rapidly and denounced Eadric to a party of riders who appeared around a bend in the road.
‘They seized me and beat me, holding me until the bailiff of the Hundred came. He bound me and I was dragged here to prison. But it was the others who did the evil, leaving me behind to take the blame. And I can name them!’ Eadric declared.
‘A likely tale!’ sneered the sheriff. ‘Send the liar back to his cell, John.’
Although, for once, the coroner was inclined to agree with his brother-in-law, he ignored his interruption and concentrated on the prisoner. ‘An approver is supposed to challenge his accomplices to combat to the death. If you win, you can abjure the realm. But you’ll have to fight two men, one after the other.’
Eadric scowled up at de Wolfe. ‘I’ll take my chances, Crowner.’
‘There is another way for you. Instead of combat, which you are likely to lose against two others, you could choose to be tried by a jury of your fellows in the King’s court before his Justices.’
There was a sudden scrape as Richard de Revelle pushed back his chair and jumped to his feet. ‘Indeed he cannot! He must appear before this court — my court.’
De Wolfe glared down at the sheriff, who was half a head shorter. ‘By my taking his confession, he has placed himself within the coroner’s jurisdiction. And I have a duty, granted by our king through his Justiciar, to offer the justice of the royal courts to anyone accused of a serious crime, such as this.’
De Revelle’s pointed beard quivered and his normally pallid face flushed with rage. ‘Don’t start all this again, damn you,’ he hissed.
John was unperturbed by the sheriff’s fury. ‘This was a grievous assault, maybe even attempted murder. It should not have been dealt with in the Shire Court in the first place, but presented to the Eyre, as I have suggested.’
De Revelle glared around the hall, and saw the clerks’ ears were flapping, and the few spectators waiting hopefully for a first-class row between the two most senior law officers in the county. ‘I’ll not bandy words with you in public, John,’ he snarled. ‘We’ll thrash this out later in my chamber.’ Abruptly, he turned and, with his smart green cloak flying behind him, hurried to the step at the end of the platform and vanished in the direction of the keep.
Sergeant Gabriel, trying to keep the grin off his face, prodded the Saxon towards the archway. ‘I’ll send him back to Stigand’s tender care, Crowner, while he makes up his mind.’ Stigand was the brutish oaf who tended the dreadful castle gaol.
There were no other cases and the participants broke up to go their various ways. De Wolfe found himself walking back towards the gatehouse with Brother Rufus, who held Masses for the castle inhabitants in the tiny chapel of St Mary across the other side of the inner ward. His black Benedictine habit bulged around his tubby body and his shaven head shone in the morning sun as if it had been wax-polished.
‘Why the harsh words between you and the sheriff?’ asked the priest, always ready for some gossip.
‘Come up to my chamber for a jar of ale, Father, and I’ll tell you.’
Thomas was still writing up his rolls in the court and Gwyn had gone down to the town to look for the Jew’s daughter, so John was glad of some company at his morning libation.
After the rotund monk had puffed up the steep stairs in the gatehouse, they sat at the table with a mug each, filled from Gwyn’s pitcher.
‘I came to Exeter from Bristol only a month ago, so I’m not yet familiar with the local politics,’ Rufus confessed. The garrison church of St Mary was given to three prebendaries who had brought him in to administer it after the death of his predecessor.
De Wolfe cleared his throat noisily. He had taken a liking to the new chaplain and felt he might make another ally in the castle, in addition to Ralph Morin, who covertly disliked the sheriff as much as John himself.
‘De Revelle and I have a long-standing disagreement,’ he began, markedly understating the situation. ‘Last autumn I was appointed as county coroner. The sheriff agreed to this — perhaps because my wife is his sister — but he wanted someone he could control, and here I have grievously disappointed him.’
‘I heard tell of this new coroner idea in Bristol. Was it not to raise more money for the Lionheart’s ransom and his costly wars?’
‘Partly that — but the King also wanted to curb the sheriffs, who have become more powerful and more corrupt of late. Some of them — one not far from here — supported Prince John in his treacherous attempt to usurp King Richard when he was imprisoned in Germany.’
‘But what has this to do with you two sparring with each other in the Shire Hall this morning?’
De Wolfe sighed. ‘It’s a long story, Brother. When William the Bastard conquered England, he inherited such a complicated legal system from the Saxons, that all his successors have been trying to reform it ever since, especially the second Henry of glorious memory. Now Richard — or, rather, his Justiciar — is offering everyone royal justice, rather than the confusion of lower courts we have now.’
The fat monk took a pull at his pot and wiped his lips on the sleeve of his habit. ‘That sounds very reasonable, so why are you at loggerheads with your brother-in-law?’
‘That’s an even longer story! The sheriff covets unchallenged power in his county and the chance to scoop as much profit as he can into his own purse. He sees the royal courts as a threat to his interests — and as the coroner is responsible for presenting as many cases as possible to the King’s justices, he sees me as an interfering busybody, intent on thwarting his schemes.’ The priest seemed genuinely interested and listened closely to de Wolfe’s explanation of the varied functions he was expected to carry out.
‘There were supposed to be three of us in Devon,’ de Wolfe concluded, ‘but one fell from his horse and killed himself in the first fortnight and the other was a drunken fool who lasted only a few weeks. I’ve been trying to deal with everything — though, praise be to God, a decent knight from Barnstaple is willing to take on the north before long.’