Crowner's Quest by Bernard Knight Page B

poor.
    Yet de Wolfe found that he enjoyed the job: it gave him the chance to get out and about on a horse, sometimes to become involved in a fight when things turned nasty – and, above all, to escape from Matilda with a legitimate excuse to be away from home for days on end. She had thought that becoming coroner would give them increased prestige in the county pecking-order, without too much labour, that the coroner would merely officiate at local courts, hobnob with the King’s Justices when they came, and oversee the formalities at inquests. She soon learned, with dismay, that it meant her husband had to spend most of his time away from home on the back of his old warhorse Bran, in company with the red-haired Cornish savage and an evil little gnome, who was both a sexual pervert and a disgraced priest.
    A state of grumbling hostility had developed between de Wolfe and his wife, fuelled mostly on her side by his stubborn obstinacy to carry out his duties with faithful dedication, born of his conviction that it was his duty to his king. Another source of friction was her awareness of his infidelity, though the knowledge that virtually every Norman in the country had a mistress or two made this a lesser evil. Matilda herself had had a flirtation or two with men in the past, when John was away at his wars, but she had done it partly from pique and partly from boredom, rather than any passionate desire. In fact, she had found the affairs embarrassingly sordid and had long been chaste.
    Though this morning she had condescended to sit with her husband at the table, the silence was almost palpable enough to be cut with his dagger. His feeble efforts at conversation were met with stony indifference and he soon gave up, with a glowering sense of familiarity with the situation.
    As soon as he had finished eating, he threw on his cloak and whistled down the passageway to the yard for Brutus, deciding to give the old hound a walk up to the castle. The snow had stopped overnight, but there was a couple of inches of slush on the ground, dirty and stained in the middle of the lane and in the high street where people threw out their slops. Brutus was not too happy at being brought out of Mary’s warm kitchen to plod through the cold streets, but he faithfully followed his master, enjoying the various smells at each corner and the opportunity to cock his leg every few yards. At the castle gatehouse, he darted ahead of de Wolfe and ran up the twisting stone staircase, knowing that the dog-loving Gwyn would throw him a piece of his breakfast cheese.
    Up in the spartan chamber, Thomas de Peyne was in his usual place at the rough table, scribing away at duplicate rolls for the judges when they came to the January Eyre of Assize. Gwyn was perched on his window-ledge, chewing at the remains of a loaf, with Brutus already sitting at his feet staring up hopefully for a share.
    De Wolfe settled himself behind his table as Thomas put down his quill pen and waited expectantly. Before he could start telling of his archive researches, Gwyn broke in with his own story about his visit to the Saracen the night before. When he had finished, the coroner leaned forward on the table. ‘Did you learn this fellow’s name?’ he demanded.
    The Cornishman nodded. ‘I made it my business to question Willem the Fleming afterwards, miserable devil that he is. He told me that the fair man was named Giles Fulford, squire to a young knight from the Welsh Marches, who is currently living in this county.’
    ‘Do we know his name as well?’
    ‘Yes. The Fleming told me grudgingly that it was Jocelin de Braose. His father is a Marcher lord from somewhere near Monmouth.’
    John de Wolfe chewed his lip as an aid to memory. ‘I heard of that family when we accompanied Archbishop Baldwin around Wales on his recruiting campaign for the Crusade in ’eighty-eight. They had a bad reputation, as far as I recollect – every Welshman spat on the ground when their name was