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end of the cathedral. He confessed a few minor sins, which need not concern us, but then he unburdened himself of a more specific matter.’
    ‘Have a care, Thomas,’ cautioned the Archdeacon again, concerned about the inviolacy of the confessional.
    Locked in his obsessional habit, the coroner’s clerk crossed himself jerkily in anticipation of some dread revelation, but no heinous sin of the flesh was forthcoming.
    ‘De Hane said that he had been guilty of greed and covetousness, but that he had seen the error of his ways in time so that his actions now would be for the glorification of God through his Church in Exeter.’ De Boterellis stopped abruptly. ‘That is all that was relevant but, coming from someone with such a lack of avarice as de Hane, greed and covetousness seemed rather incongruous.’
    There was silence for a moment. ‘And he was never more specific about what he meant?’ asked de Wolfe.
    ‘No, he refused to elaborate, saying that all would be made clear in the fullness of time. But people do say odd things under the emotion of the confessional.’
    The Archdeacon had been staring at the cobwebbed roof-beams with an air of abstraction, but now brought down his bright grey eyes to fix them upon the coroner. ‘I wonder if another small fact fits into this puzzle,’ he mused.
    The others waited expectantly.
    ‘A week ago, I was discussing our finances with the Treasurer, John of Exeter, partly to forecast our income in the new year that is about to begin. Among many other matters, he said that he had had a rather vague promise of a substantial sum from one of our canons. I didn’t press the matter to ask from whom it had come, as it is not uncommon for the more affluent of our brothers to make such donations – but it may tie in with de Hane’s promise to his confessor.’
    Privately, the coroner felt all this talk of canonical riches too vague to be of any use, but so far it was all he had by way of background on the dead man. ‘So do you think that Robert de Hane had some hidden wealth, in spite of his outwardly modest style of living, and that he was killed in furtherance of its theft?’ he suggested.
    De Boterellis shook his pudgy face. ‘When he confessed to me in such an indefinite way, the matter seemed in the future, that he was regretful for aspiring to keep what was going to come to him, rather than what he already possessed.’
    There was another thoughtful silence among the circle of men perched on their high stools, until Jordan de Brent’s deep voice broke it. ‘One trivial matter,’ said the archivist. ‘Our brother Robert rarely left the cathedral Close. He was either at his devotions in the cathedral, or home, or here in the library. Yet in the past three weeks he vanished several times for a day on the back of a pony and returned with mud-spattered feet at dusk.’
    ‘And you say that was unusual?’ asked de Wolfe, who spent half his life on the back of a horse.
    ‘Very much so – he was a most sedentary person. I’ve no idea where he went, he merely told me that he would not be here in the library on those few days. His vicar-choral and secondary must have stood in for him at services. They or his manservants might know where he went.’
    This added scrap of information seemed to exhaust the meagre pool of knowledge about the late Canon de Hane, and after de Wolfe had arranged with Jordan de Brent for Thomas to sift through de Hane’s manuscripts the hungry priests dispersed to their midday meals. The coroner and his clerk walked across to the house where the death had taken place. In it, there was an air of sadness that ill-befitted the festival of Christ’s birth. The body still lay on the bed as the coroner had yet to hold the inquest. Afterwards it would be removed to lie in reverence before the high altar in the cathedral.
    Gwyn was in the kitchen, a lean-to built against the back of the house, projecting into the narrow garden. Most of the canons’ houses,