Henry de Furnellis was listening to a long and boring explanation by his chief clerk Elphin about evasion of taxes by a manor-lord near Okehampton. He greeted John's arrival with relief and waved the sour-faced Elphin away to obtain a respite from the accounts. Inevitably, the wine flask and cups were produced and parchments pushed aside on the sheriff's large table to make room for them.
When John had lowered himself into a sling-backed leather chair opposite Henry, they chatted for a while, then he told him of the events of the past couple of days, concentrating on the strange goings-on along the River Axe.
'It's not only this murder, but the rumours of corrupt practices there,' concluded de Wolfe. 'Doubtless there's much evasion of the king's Customs, but the possibility of piracy is more serious.'
The sheriff ran a hand through his wiry grey hair and glanced shrewdly at the coroner. 'They're a strange lot over there, right on the edge of the county. A mile or two further and they'd be Dorset men, and you know what that means!'
It was a hoary old joke that those in the next county were all rogues and villains, most of them being not quite right in the head. It arose from the bad reputation of the shipmen of Lyme, who had often preyed upon both fishermen and ships from Devon.
'Who suggested that there might be piracy involved?' asked Henry, refilling their pewter wine cups.
'This new Keeper of the Peace, Luke de Casewold. He's a pain in the arse!' added John, suddenly aware that the phrase had personal relevance to himself, though thankfully his backside seemed to be improving by the hour.
The sheriff nodded, leaning back in his chair. 'Luke de Casewold, eh? I installed him in the post some months ago, on the strength of an Article of Eyre that came from the royal justices at the last session in Taunton. There are half a dozen of them now scattered around the county. There should be more, but no one wants to take on the job. Like you coroners, they are forbidden to take any salary, though I suspect they make up for it in other ways!'
'I doubt this fellow is corrupt; he's too keen to make his mark,' grunted John. 'Wants to chase every neer-do-well in Devon but has no one to back him up. The bailiffs and serjeants in those Hundreds over there don't seem keen to give him much help in keeping the peace.'
'What do you intend doing about it?' This confirmed John's impression that the sheriff had no inclination to stir himself out of his chamber to keep law and order, when he had a coroner stupid enough to do the job for him.
'Nothing can be done, unless some new information comes to hand,' he growled. 'I'm waiting for this cog The Tiger to return to Axmouth, so that I can talk to the shipmaster about the dead youth. I've not much hope of anything useful coming from it; these sailors will hardly give you a good morning, let alone confess to a murder.'
As Elphin came back into the room clutching a sheaf of parchments and looking accusingly at his master, Henry sighed. 'I'd better get back to work, John. Maybe de Casewold will turn something up. He seemed a ferreting kind of man, by what I recall of him.'
John threw down the last of his wine and stood up. 'He'd better watch his step over there, or he'll end up floating face down in the river,' he grumbled.
On leaving Rougemont, John walked to North Street through the back lanes of the city, intent on visiting an apothecary to make sure that his boil was really on the mend. Of the several men in Exeter who claimed proficiency in pharmacy, Richard Lustcote was the acknowledged leader, being warden of their guild and the longest-established apothecary in the city.
An avuncular man with greying hair, he kept premises on the ground floor of his house in North Street, where a journeyman and two apprentices were kept busy making potions, lotions and all manner of salves to sell to the more affluent citizens. The poorer majority were content to seek their medical care from local 'wise women' and from members of their family who claimed to possess some degree of familiarity with herbal remedies. There were no doctors in Exeter, the nearest thing to a physician being provided by the priories.
The coroner entered the aroma-reeking shop of the apothecary, its walls lined with shelves and compartments filled with dried herbs and packets of powders and salves. Lustcote sat at a table, decanting liquids into phials; in the room behind, several youths were rolling pills and pounding concoctions in a pestle and mortar. Richard was an old friend of John's, and after a brief explanation of his complaint the coroner was taken behind a curtain in a corner of the room to expose his nether regions to the apothecary.
After some gentle prodding and probing, accompanied by a muttered commentary to himself, Lustcote fetched a pottery jar of some green foul-smelling salve and applied it liberally to the brawny swelling on the coroner's buttock. Covering it with a pad of wool, he bound it in place with a long length of linen and presented the pot of ointment to his friend.