The Sanctuary Seeker Read Online Free PDF Page B

bawling in a voice that could have been heard far up on the moors ‘AH ye who have anything to do before the King’s coroner for the county of Devon, draw near and give your attendance!’
    There was some shuffling of feet as the gathering waited expectantly for something to happen. The women of the village, excluded from the menfolk’s participation, loitered in the background, whispering behind their hands at this unexpected entertainment in their drab lives.
    ‘The first finders - they who discovered the body step forward,’ commanded the coroner.
    With a jostling of neighbours’ elbows, a young man with curly blond hair stepped out reluctantly and made a diffident nod of obeisance before the coroner. He had a bad cold and his nose was running like a tap.
    A rough hessian smock, with a knotted rope for a belt, left his arms bare, which like his face, had many bramble scratches, some still bleeding.
    ‘Give your name and age to the clerk.’
    Thomas was crouched on a milking stool at John’s right hand, his parchments and inks spread on a small bench before him. His quill moved rapidly.
    ‘Cerdic, of this village, sir,’ he muttered, between sniffs. ‘English, I am,’ he added, superfluously as, with a name like his, he could be neither Norman nor Celt.
    ‘Your age, boy?’
    ‘Seventeen … I think,’ he added uncertainly.
    Crowner John ignored the muffled titter that came from the women at the back. ‘And this body - tell us how you found it.’
    The lad drew a brawny arm across his nose to wipe away a dribble. ‘On my way to the bottom wood to cut withies, I was. Down the path by the brook, I saw this here body, lying face down in the water, his head on our side.’
    The clerk scribbled away furiously, as the coroner sought more detail. ‘What time was this, boy?’
    ‘Just after dawn, sir. A bite to eat and I was out.
    First up in the village, I reckon.’
    ‘What did you do then, boy?’ rasped John.
    Cerdic ran a forearm across his nose, then spat noisily onto the ground. “I met Nebba when I was running back to the village. I told him, and he came back with me to look at the dead man. Then we both went to find Ralph.’
    John pressed him for more facts of how the body lay and what wounds he had seen, but nothing new emerged. The young man was allowed to step back into the village ranks, which he did with obvious relief.
    The next witness was a small boy, who had been tending the pigs the night before. He was marched forward by his mother, a formidable woman of extreme ugliness, who gripped her reluctant son by the shoulder to propel him before the Bishop’s chair. Wide-eyed and overawed, all he could stammer out was a vow that there had been no body in the stream late the previous evening when he had scoured the area for a roaming pig.
    After the child had been dragged away by his mother, John turned to the manor reeve. ‘Who’s this Nebba that the first witness mentioned?’
    Ralph looked uneasy and shifted his feet about on the wet earth. ‘He’s a stranger in the village, Crowner.
    Been here a month or so.’
    ‘Let’s hear from him, then,’ snapped John.
    There was much gabbling and moving among the onlookers, many of whom turned round to look across the village green. A man, whom the coroner had noticed earlier at the back of the crowd, was walking quickly away.
    Gwyn yelled at him to come back and, when the fellow took no notice, strode after him. Immediately, the man began to run, but he was no match for Gwyn’s long legs. Although the cornishman was built like a bull, he could move fast over short distances and before the fugitive had gone fifty yards, he had him by the neck and was dragging him back to the inquest, his heels scraping along the ground.
    Pushing his way through the ring of villagers, Gwyn shoved the man before the coroner.
    John glared at him. ‘What’s going on? Why did you run away, knave?’
    Nebba was thin, with tangled blond hair and moustache.
    He wore a