He had an empty cask in front of him to support his parchments and ink bottle, which he always carried in a leather pouch slung over his shoulder.
A few curious spectators clustered inside, the gate, mostly old men with nothing else to occupy their time, plus a sprinkling of goodwives and some cheeky urchins.
John spotted old Edwin from the Bush, who obviously could not resist nosing into anything that took place within a few hundred paces of the tavern.
Gwyn bellowed out the official summoning of the inquest, exhorting 'all who have anything to do before the king's coroner for the county of Devon' to 'come forth and give their attendance'. Then he walked to stand behind John, who glowered around at the jurors, looking like a big crow in his wolfskin cloak of mottled grey over a long black tunic. The cold breeze swirled his swept-back hair over his collar as he harshly instructed the men as to their functions.
'This is an inquest held to investigate a breach of the peace of our sovereign lord, King Richard,' he began.
'You must consider who, where, when and by what means the man who lies here came to his death.' He glared around the ring of jurors, as if defying them to contradict him. 'First, let me hear from the First Finder, who discovered the corpse.'
Reluctantly, the builder stepped forward and stood before John de Wolfe. In response to some impatient prompting, he said that he was Roger Short, a carpenter, who was adapting the building for use as an additional lecture room. Describing how he had unearthed the cadaver from the angle between the upper floor and the rafters, he went on to emphasise that he had rushed to report it to the magister. Roger wanted to avoid any amercement for delay and promptly passed the buck to James Anglicus.
After determining that the carpenter had no idea who the body was nor how it had got there, de Wolfe asked him a last question. 'How long would you say it had been up in that loft?'
The scruffy little builder hitched up his sagging breeches and shrugged. 'Hard to tell, sir. There was a thick layer of dust all over the rubbish that covered him, so that hadn't been moved in a long time. Months, I'd say.'
Roger had nothing else to contribute and thankfully stepped back, allowing Walter Pole to take his place. De Wolfe got him to repeat the reasons why he thought the corpse was that of Matthew Morcok.
'This deformity of the arm bone will be shown to you all in a moment,' the coroner promised the jury. 'Meanwhile, I will presume that you agree that the body is that of the cordwainer.'
Then he moved on to the contentious matter of Presentment of Englishry, which he had to explain to them, well aware that they resented the financial implications.
'After King William first took possession of this country, many Saxons took it upon themselves to slay what they considered to be Norman invaders,' he began, not shirking his words even though there were men of obvious Saxon blood in his audience.
'To discourage this, a heavy murdrum fine is levied on any community amongst whom a man is found murdered, unless his family can prove he is English or Welsh or Scottish.' Again he scowled around the ring of jurors, well aware that over a century after the Battle of Hastings, intermarriage had blurred the distinction between Saxon and Norman. The murdrum fine was now just a cynical means of extracting more taxes from the population, but to the loyal John, the king's law was absolute and he had no option but to carry it out.
'Is there any man here related to Matthew Morcok who can present him as English?'
There was a silence, as de Wolfe had known there would be, as the only kin was a daughter many miles away — and women were not allowed to make presentment, which was normally carried out by two male relatives.
'Then this will be recorded by my clerk in his rolls and it will be up to the justices, when they arrive, to decide upon the amount of the fine.'
There were no other witnesses to call, so Gwyn rounded up the jurors and drove them nearer the doors of the forge. Going inside, he dragged out an old door on which lay the pathetic remains of Matthew Morcok, covered with a dirty piece of canvas from the loft.
'You will all look upon the cadaver before you advise me of your verdict,' said the coroner. 'But first, I will show you this.'
He held up the rusty nail and passed it to Walter Pole, who was the spokesman for the jury. They all passed it from hand to hand and examined it with obvious curiosity.
'This was found driven into the bones of his neck.
You will see the hole it made when you view the remains.' They filed past as Gwyn lifted off the canvas and their reactions varied from the stolid to the revolted. The sight of the twisted, leathery mummy caused some to gasp, but most of the older men, especially those used to the carnage of battle and the cruelties of farming and slaughtering, merely nodded or grunted. When the viewing of the body was complete, de Wolfe again faced the assembled citizens.
'It is clear that this man, who surely must be Matthew Morcok, a master saddler of Priest Street, was foully done to death by a spike being hammered into his spine. When this happened, we cannot tell, but I will assume that it was during the past year, the sixth in the reign of our sovereign lord King Richard.' He paused and his piercing gaze swept along the row of faces before him.
'Who killed Matthew, we do not know, but it is my duty and that of the sheriff to discover that. Until then, the only verdict of this inquest can surely be that he was murdered by some unknown person or persons.' The men shuffled their icy feet on the frozen mud of the yard and looked at each other uncertainly.
'To allow this poor fellow a decent burial at last, I must complete these proceedings — though the inquest can be resumed at any time when further information comes to light. So now confer amongst yourselves and let me know your decision.'
This was said with a final glare that betokened dire consequences for anyone who challenged his decision — and within a moment, Walter Pole had muttered to the men next to him and come back with total agreement.
'We say the man is Matthew Morcok, sir — and he was foully killed against the king's peace.'
That was good enough for de Wolfe, and with a nod at Thomas to get everything down on his parchment, he waved away the crowd, who began drifting towards the street. He beckoned to Walter Pole, the harness maker.
'What about burying this poor fellow?' he asked. 'Are you going to send for his daughter?'
'Our guild will see that everything is done right, Crowner. But I don't think we can wait for the daughter, even if we knew exactly where she lived! It would take two or three weeks to get a message to Oxford, and then for her to get back here.'
John knew that part of the function of the various guilds was to ensure that the widows and families of dead members were looked after and this extended to seeing that deceased guildsmen had a decent funeral if there was no one else to provide for them. But his own duty to the corpse was now fulfilled, apart from finding the murderer, so with a yearning look across the road towards the Bush, he made his way back home for dinner.
John found Matilda to be in a less frosty mood than he had expected and she even listened to his account of the inquest with less than her usual indifference. He always studiously avoided any topics that could trigger her scorn and anger, which severely limited the range of acceptable subjects for conversation. Naturally mention of the Bush alehouse was forbidden, and even talk about the shipping venture with Hugh de Relaga was banned, for the simple reason that their three vessels were owned in partnership with Hilda of Dawlish, one of his former lovers before Nesta came on the scene.
But today, his wife seemed moderately civil, if not actually affable. Sensitive to her moods after years of suffering, John wondered what was making her so mellow. It was only after finishing their meal that he found out. When Mary's boiled bacon and a pease pudding had been consumed, followed by dried apricots stewed in honeyed cider, Matilda took her cup of small ale to the fireside and divulged not one, but two reasons for her relatively benign mood.