Read Online The Tinner's Corpse by Bernard Knight - Free Book Online Page B

site just along the high street from the square. Two alehouses and an inn sat on the opposite side of the street to the church, which was in the angle of a bend in one of the tracks leading down towards Moretonhampstead. A few stalls sat along the edge of the street, their owners blessing the new coroner for an unexpected increase in trade, as the jurors, witnesses and curious spectators flocked past and bought fresh bread, pasties and winter-withered apples to sustain them during the coming entertainment.
    Chagford was not a typical town in that its prosperity depended more on the minerals dug from the moor than the ubiquitous agriculture that sustained most other hamlets and vills. The metal was mostly tin, but there was also a little silver and lead. Most of its population were freemen and although there were the usual strip-fields around the town and girdling every nearby village, many families owed no fee-service to the various lords. Instead they were employed and paid by the tin-masters, or worked their own solitary claims.
    Thus it was that on this early morning, many men and some of their wives and children were able to attend the inquest more easily than if they had been bondsmen. Jurors were primarily witnesses, rather than a judging panel, so theoretically every male over the age of twelve years from the four nearest villages was supposed to join the jury with the aim of increasing the chances of finding someone who had personal knowledge of the event. This law was soon found to be impracticable: the summons could not be circulated quickly enough, and it would have denuded the fields of workers and left the animals untended. A compromise was soon reached whereby a score was considered an acceptable quorum.
    This number, and many more besides, now trooped through the gap in the drystone wall around the churchyard and formed a large circle centred on the old Saxon altar that sat in the grass a few yards north of the church itself. This ancient stone table had been moved out of the church at the rebuilding because a new one with a marble slab had been given by the tinners. The crowd was scattered among the many low grassy mounds that marked grave sites, a few bearing small wooden crosses, usually bereft of any inscription. This was the background to the first inquest ever held in Chagford and the size of the crowd was more an index of curiosity than any burning desire to assist the course of justice.
    Some of the older men, who had survived service in the Irish or French wars – and even one or two who had taken the Cross – knew of Sir John de Wolfe by repute; there had been few campaigns over the past twenty years in which he had not been involved. As they shuffled and stamped in the cold morning air, they regaled their neighbours with tales of Black John’s prowess, with the constant theme that he was to be trusted, but not trifled with – and that he was, first and foremost, King Richard’s man, through hell and high water.
    Soon, a small procession appeared around the further corner of the church where a lean-to shed acted as the mortuary. First came Gwyn of Polruan, whose huge, untidy figure marched cheerfully ahead of the coroner, who loped along behind, his hawk-like face as impassive as usual. De Wolfe was followed by the sexton and a gravedigger, who between them carried the handles of a wooden bier on which lay an ominously shortened shape covered with a shroud. Behind the corpse walked what at first sight seemed to be a pair of priests: beside the plump Smithson was a smaller figure, dressed in a similar long black tunic of clerical appearance. Thomas de Peyne carried his breviary in his clasped hands and his peaky face wore a suitably doleful expression. To those who did not know him, he was just another priest, which was exactly the impression he strove to give. The main difference between him and Smithson was that Thomas also carried a sagging shoulder pouch containing his writing materials. As