Courteman received his visitors in his office chamber, a cubicle partitioned from the living hall of his narrow house, appropriately as gloomy as his humourless self. A table was scattered with rolls of parchment and vellum, tied with tapes of plaited wool or leather. Shelves were loaded with dusty documents and a few books. The lawyer sat on a stool behind his table and the other two men perched on a short bench opposite. At Robert’s side stood his son and junior partner, Philip Courteman, a younger version of his father, with the same sombre look on his pallid face.
The lawyers had already heard of the death of their client Walter Knapman, and the lengthy commiseration had been completed, though Matthew suspected that the sorrow they expressed was for the potential loss of his business.
‘As you might guess,’ said Matthew, ‘the suddenness of his demise has greatly disturbed our business activities. Tin is being produced as usual, but we need to know who it belongs to, for purposes of sale and disposal. We are like a ship without a rudder at present.’
‘And we want to be reassured that the workings will remain together, not be broken up,’ cut in Peter Jordan. ‘There are people waiting like wolves around a sheepfold to seize any opportunity to ravage us — Stephen Acland for one, though others would like to bid piecemeal for the dozen or so stream-works and blowing-houses.’
The older lawyer steepled his fingers against his lips and managed to look more miserable than usual. ‘What do you want from me? There’s little enough I can do at this early stage.’ He looked up at his pasty-faced son, as if to seek his agreement to their legal impotency.
‘There may be difficult problems in this situation,’ said the younger man obscurely.
Matthew sounded impatient: ‘Every day’s uncertainty makes trading more difficult,’ he complained. ‘There has just been a new coinage in Chagford, and I have a large quantity of metal ready for the second smelting and sale. I need to know for whom I am selling.’
Robert Courteman spread his hands as if in benediction. ‘I can appreciate the problems, Matthew, but it is too soon for answers.’
‘But we need to know what is in his will as soon as possible,’ said Peter, impatient at the lawyer’s torpid attitude.
‘And even if there is a will,’ snapped Matthew in frustration.
Courteman shook his head slowly. ‘I cannot divulge the contents of a last testament, not until the proper circumstances arrive.’
‘And what might they be, for God’s sake?’ asked the dead man’s twin.
‘All the family together, everyone who might benefit. They are entitled to hear it from the lawyer’s own lips, not second-hand after it has been divulged piecemeal to all and sundry.’
Matthew grunted in disgust. ‘We’re not all and sundry, Robert. I’m his twin brother, and Peter is the nearest thing to a son that Walter had. At least you can confirm that there is a will — and when it was last altered, if it has been?’
The elder Courteman pursed his lips. ‘I’m not sure I can even do that, Matthew. The relations between a lawyer and his client are as sacred as those between a priest and sinner, you know.’
‘God’s bones, Robert, we are all one family here! Your own daughter is married to Peter, so what affects his future affects hers too.’
Courteman wagged his head slowly from side to side, his wattles swaying under his chin. ‘One cannot let personal issues sway the sacred trust of our profession, Matthew,’ he uttered sententiously. ‘However, I will venture so far as to tell you that there is indeed a last will and testament to which Walter Knapman appended his mark in front of me as a witness, and that I will be disclosing its contents to the assembled family, principally his lawful wife Joan, in the very near future.’
‘How near?’ demanded Peter Jordan. ‘Does this mean another journey to Chagford?’
‘No, I have had a message that the widow is coming to Exeter very shortly, together with her mother and brother. I will inform you when the testament will be read, so that you can arrange to be present. If the widow wishes it, it may even be tomorrow.’
And with that the impatient pair had to be content.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Friday, the fifteenth of April, dawned grey and cold on Dartmoor, as if the spring was making up for the relatively mild winter by being spitefully unseasonable. Snow covered the moors, and even in the greener valleys around the edges of the huge wasteland the new buds and peeping flowers were powdered with white. The lowering grey clouds threatened more snow to come, and as Gwyn of Polruan rode his mare down from Wibbery’s manor barton to the town, a few flakes fluttered on the wind that moaned softly around him. The big Cornishman pulled up the hood of his tattered leather shoulder cape and plodded on philosophically, inured to the weather of a dozen countries after years of campaigning.
He was not clear as to why the coroner had left him in Chagford, but for some reason John de Wolfe wanted an eye kept on the tinners and the sheriff until they had all dispersed after the coinage. Judging from the amount of metal left for assaying last evening, Gwyn estimated it would finish by the middle of the day and then he could turn for home and hearth, to be with his wife and children in St Sidwell’s.
There was a livery stable at the near end of the high street and there Gwyn left his mare, knowing that the coroner would reimburse him the halfpenny that shelter and forage would cost. He walked on to the square and, for the next hour or so, stood idly watching the coinage process as it worked its way through the diminishing piles of black tin ingots. Although many miners had already left Chagford after their bars had been coined, there were still plenty of men around and the alehouses were full, as Gwyn discovered when his insatiable hunger and thirst drove him to the Crown for relief. As the coroner had ordered, he eavesdropped on as many conversations as possible and gossiped with a number of men, using his boyhood experience in Cornwall with his father to masquerade as another tinner. However, his efforts produced nothing new, only repetition of anger against Richard de Revelle’s clinging to the Wardenship, complaints about the rate of coinage tax, and the widespread conviction that Aethelfrith the Saxon had been behind Henry’s death and the damage to their tin-workings.
When Gwyn came out of the tavern, the snow had increased markedly. A keen east wind was driving it into little drifts against walls and hedges and the ground was already covered to a depth of a couple of inches. As he tramped back over to the square to see the last of the coinage, his riding boots squeaked hollows into the fresh snow and white flakes lodged in his great moustache.
Under the cover of the enclosure, the assay master and the Controller toiled away with the Steward and Receiver to finish the work, so that they and the tinners might leave for home before the moor became impassable. Another hour went by before the sheriff put in an appearance, together with Geoffrey Fitz-Peters from Lydford. They had stayed in the warmth and comfort of de Prouz’s castle at Gidleigh until Richard de Revelle calculated that the coinage was nearing its end and he could put in a final appearance with the least personal discomfort.
As they all stood watching, and listening to the monotonous rhythm of the hammer, chisel and chanting of the clerks as they repeated the weight and quality of each ingot, Gwyn became gradually aware of a different, more distant noise. Above the undulating soft whistle of the wind, he heard a distant growling. As the minutes went by, it strengthened into the shouting of an angry crowd.
Now the heads of those around him began to lift, as they also sensed the approaching tumult. Even the coinage team stopped work to listen. With the hammering quieted, the shouts of a mob became clear and Gwyn saw the sheriff stiffen and motion to Sergeant Gabriel to bring his men-at-arms closer into the coinage shelter. Only half a dozen soldiers remained: Ralph Morin had left at dawn for Exeter with the rest of the men, not wishing to leave Rougemont Castle bereft of its garrison. With many others, Gwyn stepped out into the swirling snowflakes and began to walk up to the top of the square, where he could look down the street to where the yelling rabble was rapidly approaching.