He was rewarded with a glassy stare from the pale blue eyes that looked back from the red face, which carried an even redder, bulbous nose laced by fine purple veins.
‘What exactly does that mean, eh?’
The scowl on de Wolfe’s dark face deepened. ‘It’s what gives the office its name, for God’s sake!’ he snarled, in exasperation. ‘Why d’you think we’re called coroners? From custos placitorum coronas, keeper of the pleas of the Crown! But we keep them, not hold them. We’re not judges.’
Theobald made an effort to comprehend. ‘So what does keeping entail, John?’
‘It means directing the trial of all serious crimes and legal suits to the royal courts, rather than letting them be dealt with by the burgess court, the sheriff’s Shire Court or the manorial courts.’
‘Damn nonsense!’ cut in the sheriff, who could restrain himself no longer. ‘Our courts have managed well enough for centuries.’
Richard de Revelle was in a difficult position: on the one hand he wanted to put John down by appointing Fitz-Ivo, so limiting his power over the whole county, yet on the other he disagreed fundamentally with the new post of coroner, which curtailed his own freedom to practise autocracy and corruption.
De Wolfe turned slowly to his brother-in-law. ‘Perhaps you would like to express that opinion to the Justiciar when you take the Devon farm to Winchester next week. Hubert Walter will be happy to relay your condemnation to the King when he next visits Normandy — especially as part of the reason for the new system was to increase the royal revenues to pay for the King’s ransom and his campaigns against the French.’
De Revelle ground his teeth in frustration, but he was in no position to defy John too openly, given the cloud of royal disapproval under which he laboured.
De Wolfe turned back to Theobald, who sat uneasily now, wondering if he really wanted the appointment. He was dressed gaudily in an elaborately embroidered tunic of green wool and a surcoat of scarlet brocade, which, although originally of excellent quality, were now slightly threadbare and definitely grubby. A wide leather belt sagged below the bulge of his corpulent belly and red breeches ended in pale tan leather boots with very pointed toes. A greater contrast with the lean, ascetic de Wolfe, clad all in grey and black, was hard to imagine.
John continued to rub salt into Fitz-Ivo’s wounds with an catalogue of coroner’s duties. ‘You must attend every sudden or unnatural death, every rape, every serious assault and burglary that is reported to you by the bailiffs or the constables. Go to every fire of house or barn, whether they cause death or not … attend every hanging, mutilation and trial by battle or ordeal, every catch of royal fish, the sturgeon and the whale, every find of treasure trove. You take confessions from sanctuary seekers and organise abjurations of the realm, hear the pleas of approvers who wish to save their skins by giving evidence against fellow conspirators, and appeals from those who wish to start proceedings in the royal courts. And you must have a jury assess the value of all deodands and decide where that value is to be lodged.’
‘What’s a deodand?’ asked the fuddled Theobald.
Restraining his impatience with difficulty, de Wolfe explained, ‘Anything that causes a death — a knife, a cart, even a mill-wheel.’
By now, Fitz-Ivo’s ruddy complexion had paled considerably, but John was not finished. With almost sadistic enjoyment, he continued, ‘You are an officer of the King’s justices and your main function is keep a record of every legal event within your jurisdiction to present to the judges when they arrive. You must amerce any miscreant or those who fail to carry out the legal procedures, and though you do not collect the money yourself, your assessment of the fines must be presented to the justices, at penalty of your own pocket.’
At the mention of loss of money, Fitz-Ivo’s moist, flabby lips quivered. ‘What about recompense for my labours, then?’
De Wolfe scowled at him fiercely. ‘Surely you’ve been told that you are forbidden to receive any fee. You must have proved already that you have an income of at least twenty pounds a year, in order to be aloof from any temptation to profit personally from your appointment.’ Here he paused to look pointedly at his brother-in-law, whose reputation for embezzlement was unparalleled west of Bristol.
‘But expenses? Surely there is some refund of costs in all this labour?
De Wolfe nodded. ‘You may pay your clerk a reasonable sum for his work, up to a few pence per day, and you may recover the cost of lodging and horse fodder when you are away from home. This may be raised from the sale of deodands, but strict accounts must be presented to the judges or you will find yourself locked in the cells here below our feet.’
He took such a malicious delight in frightening his would-be colleague that the sheriff felt obliged to reassure Fitz-Ivo. ‘John puts the worst face upon it, Theobald. I fear that sometimes he has a strange sense of humour. You will fill the post admirably, I’m sure. Let us agree to a trial period — say six months — to see how you fare.’
In spite of de Wolfe’s glowering disapproval, it was finally arranged that Fitz-Ivo would deal with all cases in the Hundreds of the northern part of the county above a line that ran roughly east-west from Tiverton to Okehampton. In addition, they would cover each other’s territory if one was absent or indisposed, though de Wolfe vowed to himself that he would never let Fitz-Ivo meddle with his part of the county while he still had breath in his body.
Officially, a coroner could only be appointed by the Shire Court, then ratified by the Justiciar or the Chancellor, so Richard de Revelle promised that Fitz-Ivo would be installed at the fortnightly court, which was due to be held in Rougemont next morning.
As the coroner moved towards the door, the sheriff broached a different matter. ‘The day after tomorrow I have to attend the tinners’ Great Court up on Crockern Tor. I have no option because, as sheriff, I am also Lord Warden of the Stannaries.’
De Wolfe looked at him blankly. ‘What of it, Richard? Are you feared for your own head with this killer on the loose around the moor?’
Though he spoke sarcastically, there may have been an element of truth in what he said, but the sheriff dismissed it impatiently. ‘There will be a hundred or more others there. I need not worry about an assault, especially as I will have Sergeant Gabriel and half a dozen men-at-arms with me. No, I wondered if you thought it wise to attend too. All the current problems of the tinners will be aired and perhaps something useful will arise about this killing.’
De Wolfe considered this. ‘It might be advantageous, I suppose. But why are you concerned with coroner’s business?’
De Revelle put on his pompous voice: ‘As Lord Warden and county sheriff, I have a responsibility to seek out the miscreant. Anything that disturbs the production of tin reduces the revenues from the coinage. When I go to Winchester next week, the Chancellor and the Exchequer will be out of sorts with me if they suspect that less tin is being mined because of these disturbances.’
He stopped and looked craftily at his brother-in-law. ‘Especially as the King is sending it to Normandy by the thousand-weight instead of silver to pay his troops,’ he added, with a sneer.
De Wolfe ignored the jibe against his monarch and left the sheriff to repair the damage done to Fitz-Ivo’s confidence with more wine and reassurance about the simplicity of his duties. As he strode out, he wondered grimly how long the fat knight would last — although he knew that Theobald would be well under de Revelle’s thumb: the sheriff would want to ensure that he was of no hindrance to his underhand dealings.