De Wolfe bent his head to enter the low room that occupied all the ground floor, making for his favourite bench at a table near the central firepit. It was sheltered by a wattle hurdle from the draught from the front door and was so well known as the coroner's personal seat that anyone already sitting there would hastily move out of his way. Brutus slid under the table, aware that he would soon get a bone or some scraps from a platter, while John eased himself down on to Lustcote's new woollen pad. Almost immediately, a quart jar of best ale was set in front of him by the potboy. This was old Edwin, who had not been a boy for fifty years - an old soldier with a crippled foot and one eye, the other being a ghastly white globe in a scarred socket, the legacy of a spear-thrust in one of the Irish wars. The garrulous old fellow saluted John in semi-military style, calling him 'captain' by virtue of their being in the same campaign in France many years ago.
'The mistress is in the kitchen-shed, cap'n!' he croaked. 'Screaming at a new cook-maid who can't boil a bloody egg.'
Edwin was easily the most inquisitive man in the city of Exeter and had often fed John useful titbits of information gleaned from the hundreds of travellers who passed through the Bush. The coroner thought it might be worth trying to tap his store of gossip.
'Know anything about Axmouth, Edwin? I've got to deal with a killing over there.'
The haggard old man rubbed his chin, his dead eye rolling horribly.
'God's guts, Crowner, they're funny buggers over that side of the county!' he said, falling in with most people's opinion of the inhabitants of the Axe valley. 'Busy place, though, a lot of trade passing in and out of that river. I left from there in '73 on a voyage to St-Malo when we went to fight in Brittany for old King Henry.'
John was more interested in present problems than in ancient history.
'You must get shipmen in here sometimes. Have you heard of any ill-doings in that port, such as piracy or smuggling?'
Edwin gave a toothless grin as he gathered up empty ale-pots.
'Smuggling? Of course, who doesn't dodge the tallyman when he can? Goes against the grain to pay for something, then have to pay the bloody Exchequer as well. Begging your pardon, Crowner,' he added hurriedly as he realised that he was speaking to a senior officer sworn to uphold the law.
As this seemed an almost universal sentiment amongst the citizens, John let it pass. 'What about piracy?' he demanded.
Edwin considered this for a moment. 'Well, cap'n, there are rumours, but you get them from any port along the western coast. A few drunken shipmen have occasionally boasted how they outran some privateer - and there are whispered tales of ships never being heard of again and of corpses washed up with their throats cut.'
'But Axmouth in particular?' persisted the coroner.
The old man shrugged. 'Never recall anyone mentioning it, sir. As I said, they are a rough lot over there; they don't seem to have much to do with us here in the city.' He heard the back door bang and saw the landlady bustling towards them, so he made a show of wiping John's table with a rag to mop up the spilt ale. 'Here's the missus coming,' he muttered and moved away.
'What's that old rascal been gossiping about, John?' she asked briskly, then slid along the bench towards him and grasped his arm. 'And where have you been this past week, Sir Crowner?'
This was Nesta's half-bantering, half-sarcastic mode of addressing him when he had annoyed or neglected her. He slipped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a kiss, looking down at this pretty, auburn-haired woman of twenty-nine, his mistress for the past two years.
'I've been dealing with the villains of this county, of whom there are far too many,' he said lightly, for he knew that he had failed to visit her often enough lately. Cases seemed to come one after the other and, though they took little time to settle, the travelling around the second-largest county in England swallowed up the days and left him weary by the time he got back home. Thank God, recently they had managed to replace the coroner for the north of Devon, the first one having killed himself after a fall from his horse. For a long time, de Wolfe had had to deal with deaths and other incidents as far away as Barnstaple and Clovelly, the round trip taking several days.
'Have you eaten, John?' asked Nesta in a more conciliatory tone.
They spoke in Welsh, her native tongue and one that John had learnt at his mother's knee, as Enid de Wolfe was the daughter of a Cornish knight and a mother from Gwent, the same part of south-east Wales from which Nesta came. Even Gwyn could converse with them in that language, being a Cornishman from Polruan - a fact that annoyed Thomas when he was with them, as he was a dyed-in-the-wool English Norman, his father being a minor knight from Hampshire.
John assured Nesta that he had not long eaten, having been filled to capacity by Mary, who had boiled a whole pike and served it with turnips, onions and beans. As tomorrow was Friday, no doubt they would have the rest of the large coarse fish then, in some guise or other.