Crowner Royal (Crowner John Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF Page B

from the main storerooms down here.’
    This was of little interest to de Wolfe, who had a slaying and a vanished murderer to deal with. Further questions revealed that Basil had no family in Westminster and lived in the clerk’s dormitory in the palace. The Chief Purveyor seemed more concerned at finding a replacement for the dead man than in regretting his death, but he agreed to report the matter to the Keeper of the Palace, Nicholas de Levelondes, who was ultimately in charge of the staff who saw to the running of the establishment. He also grudgingly agreed to send one of his young clerks up to the guest chambers to make certain that Basil of Reigate was not sitting there alive and well.
    ‘What do we do now?’ asked Gwyn, as they began retracing their steps through the warren that was the ground floor.
    ‘Wait until we hear of a body being washed up on the mud somewhere,’ muttered John somewhat heartlessly. ‘Thomas was right, without a corpse I have no jurisdiction.’
    ‘Are you going to report this to Hubert Walter?’
    De Wolfe shook his head. ‘He’ll not want to hear of the killing of some obscure clerk, especially as the most likely explanation is a violent robbery.’
    ‘What happens if we catch the villain who did it?’ persisted Gwyn. Things were so different here from the straightforward routines that he was used to in Devonshire.
    John thrust his fingers through the thick black hair that swept back from his forehead. ‘God knows we have enough judges in this place – there’s three sitting almost every day on the King’s Bench in the Great Hall. I suppose Thomas will write up the details on his rolls as usual and we present the case to the justices, just as if it was an Eyre coming to Exeter.’
    They reached the bottom of their staircase, familiar territory at last and began to climb to their chamber.
    ‘But what about the abbot’s jurisdiction here?’ asked Thomas, always mindful of the rights of his beloved Church. ‘He holds the Liberty of Westminster, which includes the abbey, the village and the palace itself. I hear from my clerical colleagues that William Postard is most jealous of his powers, worse than many a manor-lord. In fact, he is also lord of several manors in the vicinity, which he rules with an iron hand!’
    Gwyn, ever cynical about anything ecclesiastical, added his pennyworth as they reached the upper corridor. ‘If he’s anything like the Abbot of Tavistock, he’ll have his own gallows tucked away somewhere – unless he uses that one you spoke of at Tyburn.’
    It was true that some of the more powerful churchmen were equally as despotic as barons and earls – and many were more concerned with their estates, politics and even warfare as with the cure of souls and the propagation of the Faith. Hubert Walter himself was not only Archbishop of Canterbury, but was also the Chief Justiciar and had been at the king’s right hand during the later battles of the last Crusade. It would not surprise de Wolfe if Abbot William Postard also exercised the power of life and death in his little realm of Westminster.

 
CHAPTER TWO
     
In which Crowner John disagrees with a sheriff
     
    Although the coroner feared that the missing corpse might be carried downriver and be lost for ever at sea, it did not in fact travel very far from Westminster.
    The Thames was flowing sluggishly after several weeks of dry weather and the neap summer tides were low. By next morning, the dead man’s cassock had snagged on a partly submerged tree stump in the shallows, just past the outflow of the Holbourn or Fleet stream on the northern bank, where the city wall ended.
    Though corpses were found almost daily in the great river, ones with a tonsure and clerical garb were not that common and a wherryman rowing empty towards the wharf at Baynard’s Castle was intrigued enough to recover the body. He hauled it aboard and had a quick look to see if the fingers bore any rings that could be looted.