The Manor of Death Read Online Free PDF

once again went red in the face and rattled his sword in its scabbard. 'Have a care, bailiff! You are just a servant, albeit of a priory - but I am a knight of the realm and deserve respect from such as you! One of the reasons that our blessed King Richard set up Keepers last year was because of the laxity and corruption of sergeants and bailiffs.'
    Again, John de Wolfe stepped in to quell the developing fight - if he had had a bucket of water, he would have thrown it over them, as if they were two dogs snarling in the street. 'Enough of this! I wish to see the body, straight away. I trust it has not been moved?'
    De Casewold shook himself, like an angry cockerel settling its feathers.
    'Of course not, Crowner! I know the law: the cadaver must be left in situ until viewed by the coroner. Though I had the nearest householders to put up hurdles around it to keep off dogs and foxes overnight.'
    They set off back up the track, the Keeper of the Peace marching ahead importantly with his clerk trailing behind him. They were followed by the coroner's party, then the locals, headed by the bailiff and portreeve.
    As they passed the few small thatched huts that straggled up from the town, heads poked out from each doorway, peering at these strangers from distant Exeter. Everyone knew that the coroner had been called, but no one wished to become involved unless they were forced to, as any contact with the law was likely to prove inconvenient and expensive in terms of attachments and amercements.
    As they walked, John turned and beckoned to the portreeve to catch him up. 'Why did you say this was only a sailor whose body happened to be washed up here?' he asked. 'He could hardly get himself washed into a grave behind a hazel bush,' he added sarcastically.
    Elias Palmer looked confused and guilty at the same time, as the bailiff hurried to join them. 'I thought ... I only meant .. .' he stuttered, until Northcote interrupted gruffly.
    'He meant that someone must have found the corpse washed up along the high-tide mark and decided to hide it away to avoid trouble ... such as that from the coroner!' he said rudely. 'We all know that having a corpse on your manor means an inquest and no doubt amercements for some breach of the rules, which you law officers always manage to find!'
    Though he did not admit it, John had to agree that often the inhabitants of one village would drag a dead body across the boundary into another manor to relieve themselves of the problems that a corpse always presented. He grunted, his usual means of expressing his disapproval.
    'Then someone here must have had prior knowledge of the corpse - and kept it to himself. I'll have him amerced for that when I find out who it was!'
    As he uttered this threat, the Keeper stopped ahead of them and gesticulated, jabbing his arm towards the undergrowth that fronted a wood that lay at the foot of the high ground that was a backdrop to the town. On the other side of the track, the ground dropped away to the edge of the estuary.
    'In here, Crowner, a hundred paces further.'
    He dived into a patch of bushes and small trees, all greening up with the new growth of an early spring. Trampling primroses and violets, the half-score men plunged into the scrub and stopped alongside de Casewold as his clerk pulled down one of the hurdles of woven hazel withies to reveal a shallow pit.
    'Here he is, Sir John! Kept quite intact for you,' he said with the air of someone who was offering a valuable gift.
    De Wolfe looked down at the hole, where the gritty soil had been thrown aside to reveal a man's body lying face down in the earth. It was clothed in a leather jerkin rather like Gwyn's and a pair of canvas breeches cut off at mid-calf, with no shoes or cap, the typical wear for a ship's crewman.
    'Do we know who he is?' was John's first demand. There was much shaking of heads and muttered denials. Everyone from Axmouth was anxious to keep their distance from any knowledge of this cadaver.
    'I