As the dead boy's hair was almost black, this ruled him out, if the sullen shipmaster was telling the truth. The coroner climbed back down to the quayside and strode along the river, calling at each vessel and asking similar questions at every one of them. He had little but reluctant answers and surly shakes of the head, which made him suspect that there was a conspiracy of silence amongst these seamen.
'Not a very helpful bunch, are they?' he growled to Luke de Casewold as they finally reached the gateway into the village.
'Sailors are a strange lot; they stick together against the world, just like tinners,' observed the Keeper, who seemed to possess a philosophical streak.
'I got the feeling that they were hiding something from me,' grumbled John.
'They're like that with all law officers,' said Luke reassuringly. 'On principle, they are reluctant to give us even a 'good morning' if they can avoid it. Not that that's confined to shipmen; every damned man and woman in the hundred answers me grudgingly. Everyone has a guilty conscience about something!'
'What have these seafarers got to hide, then?' demanded de Wolfe.
As they entered the village, de Casewold sniggered. 'They are all crooked, Crowner! Smuggling is their main sin, though I'd not put a little piracy past some of them.'
'I thought that tally-man down there was supposed to check all the goods. How does he operate, then?'
There was an alehouse just inside the town gate, on the left side of the track opposite the church. It was known by common usage as the Harbour Inn. Luke waved the coroner to a rough bench outside and yelled through the door for jars of ale. As they sat together in the sun, he explained the system that collected the dues from a busy port such as Axmouth.
'This fellow John Capie does his best to record all taxable goods that go out or come in from the harbour. Christ alone understands how he does it, mainly with knotted strings and notched tally-sticks, for he can neither read nor write.'
A slattern brought out two quart pots of ale, which tasted better than it looked, though John pined for the good stuff brewed by Nesta in the Bush back home. He drank and listened while the Keeper carried on with his explanation. 'Capie then goes twice a day to Elias Palmer, who writes down what Capie calculates has been loaded or discharged from each of the ships.'
'But he can't be at every ship all the time,' objected John.
'That's very true, though he checks the goods in the warehouses as well, trying to get some idea of what is being moved in and out of the port.'
De Wolfe saw Gwyn approaching in the distance and gulped down the rest of his ale, confident that he would need another jug as soon as the Cornishman arrived.
'This system seems wide open to error and abuse, if you ask me!' he growled. 'How does he actually get the money paid?'
'That's Elias Palmer's job. He charges both a manor tax and a county tax, squeezing it from whoever owns the wool or wine or whatever the goods happen to be. The first levy goes to the Priory of Loders, who own the village, then the royal tax goes to the sheriff as part of the county farm.'
Gwyn of Polruan stamped up the last few yards to the Harbour Inn and dropped heavily on to the bench.
'Waste of bloody time! Nobody knows a thing — or so they say!' he reported. 'Wouldn't tell us if they did, by their attitude! Something strange about this village, I reckon. As if they are keeping some big secret.'
Luke de Casewold nodded sagely. 'I've felt the same ever since I started coming down here as Keeper,' he asserted. 'The whole damned place is up to something, I can feel it in my bones!' He drained his ale-jar and stood up. 'I'm going to get to the bottom of it, too, whatever the cost! I was appointed to keep the peace — and that includes anything that's to the detriment of our good King Richard.'
John de Wolfe was as ardent a supporter of the Coeur de Lion as any man in England, but he felt strangely embarrassed at this over-pretentious loyalty. The fellow had been in office only a few months and here he was declaring that he was going to root out the king's enemies in a flea-bitten seaport like Axmouth. He had better watch his step, thought John. Edward Northcote, the Prior of Loders and some of those tough-looking shipmasters would not take kindly to this popinjay interfering in their affairs.
Almost immediately he felt guilty, for was he not himself a king's officer, sworn to uphold the law and justice in all their forms? Maybe he was influenced by his own dealings in wool and other commodities in his partnership in Exeter to be sufficiently condemnatory of any sharp practices elsewhere. As he pondered this potential conflict of interests, there was a distant shout from beyond the town gate. The three of them turned and saw that Hugh Bogge, the clerk to the Keeper, was coming up from the river bank, where there was a landing for the small boat that ferried people across the estuary to Seaton. Behind him waddled the figure of a woman, dressed in black with a dark shawl over her head in spite of the warmth of the day.
'It looks as if he's found someone,' said Luke smugly. The clerk marched up to them, having the same self important air as his master. Bogge was a short, rotund fellow with a moon face and pasty complexion. His mousy hair was shorn into a tonsure, and his stained black cassock was clinched at the waist with a wide leather belt, through which a large sheathed dagger was thrust, somewhat incongruously for a man in minor holy orders. The woman, who looked old but may not have been more than fifty, plodded up behind him, her lined face telling of a hard life and little expectation of it becoming better. She looked warily at these men from Exeter and Axminster, for law officers never heralded anything other than trouble and sadness.
'This is Edith Makerel, a widow of Seaton,' announced Hugh Bogge, displaying the old lady with an almost proprietorial air. De Wolfe rose from his bench and gave her a curt nod, while Gwyn gently took her arm and shepherded her to his seat.
'Edith had already reported the disappearance of her son Simon to the reeve in Seaton,' continued the clerk. 'He was a shipman who returned from his last voyage a week ago. On Saturday he went out of their cottage, which is down near the beach — and that's the last she ever saw of him.'
Widow Makerel sat looking up at the men, her eyes red-rimmed with old tears. She had a piece of rag in her hands, and her fingers continually tore at it as she spoke.
'He was not really a shipman, sirs. The lad wanted to become a clerk, but I could not afford for him to go and learn his letters. He said he would earn enough in a few years to do that and had been apprenticed to a baker in Seaton, but it burnt down a month ago and he had to seek work elsewhere. Since his father was drowned at the fishing, my two sons are our only support. The other one labours in the quarries in Beer. I did not want my boys to suffer the fate of my husband, but Simon was determined to go.'
'So he went to sea recently, madam?' asked John politely. 'But he returned home safely some days ago?'
She nodded, still shredding the rag between her fingers. 'It was but his second voyage, sir. He hated it, but it earned the few pence we sorely needed. In fact, he came back last Thursday with more than we expected. He flung it down on the table and refused to say where it came from. I knew something was very wrong.' She began to sob, and again it was Gwyn who tried to console her. The big, shambling officer placed an arm around her shoulders as he bent over her. 'We need you to look at a body, Edith. Only you can help us in this. Come with us now, across to the church.'
As they all slowly crossed the village street to the church of St Michael, Luke de Casewold murmured to his clerk: 'How did you find her, Hugh?'
'I went around the few ships on that side of the river, but none could — or would — tell me anything. Then I found the reeve of Seaton and he said that Widow Makerel had been searching for her son Simon. I went to see her and it seemed likely that a dark-haired youth of eighteen might be the one we seek.'