John could get no more from the man that was of any use, and when the eating had finally come to an end he wandered down into the hall with a cup of wine, leaving Matilda deep in conversation with Hugh de Relaga and the Mercers' guild master. There were a number of men he knew, and with his usual gruff manner softened by the substantial amount he had had to drink, he chatted amiably with acquaintances, who included several more members of various guilds, from butchers to wood-turners and from sawyers to fishmongers.
With all of them he raised the matter of Morcok's death, but everywhere he was answered with the same incomprehension that such a mild old fellow should meet such a violent end. Several were outright in their disbelief of the manner of his death, until de Wolfe assured them that he had indeed been killed in a particularly bizarre manner. They all gave him a picture of a rather reserved, solitary man, bereft of wife and daughter, who had worked faithfully for his guild for many years until his illness had overtaken him.
Frustrated with facing such a blank wall, John wandered back to his wife and sat for a time talking with his partner in the wool business. As those who had drunk too much became raucous and argumentative, with several scuffles breaking out on the floor below, Matilda decided it was time for decent ladies to absent themselves. Demanding that John drape her best cloak over her shoulders, she bade goodnight to her neighbours on the top table and sailed out, determined to show off her finery one last time before her other lady friends also decided that it was time to leave. Sated with food and wine, John made no protest and escorted her out into the night, past the beggars waiting at the door for the used trenchers and other scraps, then made for Martin's Lane and a welcome bed.
CHAPTER SIX
The next few days up to the Sabbath passed fully, with no more deaths reported to the cold weather intensified and even the foul central gutters of the streets froze solid, though snow held off despite the leaden skies.
De Wolfe had some routine matters to deal with, such as taking a confession from an approver in the foetid cells that served as a prison under the castle keep. The thief had been caught red-handed when a gang robbed a house near the East Gate, mainly because he had broken his ankle when he jumped from a window, his Confederates having escaped. Now he was trying to save his neck by incriminating them as well, and the coroner's clerk had to take down his pleas to present to the justices when they eventually arrived. Matilda was still in a moderately amiable mood, anticipating the social and religious celebrations that would accompany the feast of Christ's Mass. This would begin in a few days' time and continue until Twelfth Night at Epiphany.
John woke early on Monday to another bitterly cold morning. After breaking his fast on honeyed gruel, bread and boiled eggs in Mary's cook-shed, he made his way up to Rougemont on foot, treading carefully where runnels of ice coated the steep lane up to the castle gatehouse. His stark room at the top of the spiral stairs was too cold to endure and he found Thomas and Gwyn down in the guardroom, where Sergeant Gabriel and a man-at-arms had a log fire going inside a ring of stones in the centre of the bleak stone chamber.
'Don't get yourself too comfortable, Crowner,' warned Gwyn, brushing the crumbs of a large fish pasty from his moustache. 'We've had warning of a new corpse discovered out on the high road towards Ashburton.'
'Who is it, do we know?' John asked as he accepted a pint pot of ale from Gabriel, who had just warmed it up by mulling it with a hot poker taken from the fire.
Gwyn shook his tousled head. 'Some carter reported it late last night. The local bailiff told him to take the news to the city, as he was going that way from Totnes.'
De Wolfe groaned at the casual way that people ignored the king's regulations. 'God's guts, Gwyn, does no one ever learn? It's been well over a year since the law was laid down about dead men, yet few take the slightest bloody notice!'
An hour later, the three members of the coroner's team were riding out of the West Gate, Thomas bemoaning the fact that he had to get on his pony so early in the day. Though after months of taunting by Gwyn, he had at last abandoned riding side-saddle like a woman, he was still a reluctant horseman and jogged miserably along in the wake of the two bigger men, who were perched comfortably on their larger mounts.
The carter, who could not be found that morning, had left vague instructions as to the location of the body, which allegedly would be guarded by some local villagers — though de Wolfe doubted that they would have stayed overnight, in the hard frost, just to keep a corpse company. They splashed through the ford across the Exe, trying to ignore the icy water which was thrown up on to their legs, and took the high road which eventually led to Plymouth. After well over an hour's riding, delayed by the poor performance of their clerk, they reached a point about seven miles from the city, where they were approached by a rider wearing a heavy green cloak. As he cantered towards them on a brown mare, Gwyn automatically felt for the hilt of his sword, though a lone horseman was hardly a threat.
'Are you the crowner, sir?' asked the man diffidently as he came up to them. He was a lean, tanned individual, wearing a woollen hat under the hood of his cloak. John did not need to see the insignia of a hunting horn embroidered on his tunic to guess correctly that he was one of the forest officers, the Royal Forest beginning several miles nearer Exeter.
'I am Robert Lacey, sir,' he announced, 'The body lies about three miles further on from here.' He turned his horse and as he rode alongside them as they continued westward, de Wolfe questioned him about the corpse.
'There is little I can tell you, sir,' said Lacey. 'I knew nothing of it until late last night when a cottar came to my dwelling. I went to view it this morning, but though they had told a carter to notify you, I thought I had better ride towards the city in case he had not found you.'
'What manner of death is this?' demanded De Wolfe.
The forester shook his head as if bemused. 'I've seen nothing like it before, sir,' he said as they jogged along. 'It's strange indeed, as you will see.'
And so it proved, as John was to discover when they arrived at the scene. Rounding a bend in the hard, rutted track, they saw several men huddled under a tree at the side of the road; clutching ragged cloaks and sacks about themselves in an effort to keep warm. That section of the road went through dense forest, with bare trees lining the road for a half-mile in each direction.
Dismounting, they approached the group who appeared to be villeins, together with one man obviously of somewhat higher status, who introduced himself as the reeve of Chudleigh, the nearest village half a mile away. They were led through the dead bracken and brown, leafless bushes to the edge of the trees and there saw an extraordinary sight.
'He was just like this when Walter here found him,' muttered the reeve, a cadaveric man who looked almost as bad as the corpse.
Slumped against the bole of a young beech tree was the body of a middle-aged man, his knees resting on the frozen ground. Though his head was drooped so that his chin rested on his chest, his body was prevented from falling forwards by a chain passing around both his neck and the narrow trunk of the tree. He was fully dressed in a tunic of good brown serge, and on the ground nearby was a cloak of similar colour. All John could see of his head was sparse, sandy hair, for his face was buried in the folds of his tunic.