The Saturday of the Easter festival was a neutral sort of day, between the tragic sadness of Good Friday's Crucifixion and the triumphant drama of the Sabbath's Risen Lord. People went about their business to some extent, as food had to be bought from the stalls, bread had to be baked, animals had to be fed and meals prepared.
For one man - and his much less enthusiastic clerk - the day was to prove considerably more active. Sir Luke de Casewold, Keeper of the King's Peace for Axminster and a wide area around it, decided that he would pursue his suspicions about Axmouth by checking on the activities of the officials there and the contents of the barns and storehouses along the estuary.
He rose early and left his house in Axminster to rouse Hugh Bogge from his nearby cottage. They collected their horses from his stable and covered the five miles to Axmouth in less than an hour. There were six vessels moored along the bank below the village and several more were to be seen on the opposite side at Seaton. Where possible, the shipmasters had arranged their voyages so that they would spend Easter in port, but the Keeper soon discovered that The Tiger was not one of them.
'We'll call on that rascally tally-man first,' announced Luke, trotting his mare to a cottage halfway between the village gate and the sea. It stood between two large thatched sheds with high doors like hay-barns, though. these were firmly closed with long bars across the front, each secured with a massive iron padlock.
A crude fence around the croft hemmed in two goats, a sow, several chickens and two small children contentedly playing in the mud. De Casewold dismounted and stood at the wicker hurdle that served as a gate and yelled for the Customs official.
'John Capie! I need to talk to you. Get yourself out here!'
A woman's head poked out through the open doorway, then was quickly withdrawn after she had screeched at the infants to come inside. As they scuttled to obey, a man appeared, looking dishevelled and obviously not long risen from his bed. He was about thirty, thin and with a long sallow face, with hollow cheeks and an unshaven spread of black stubble around his jaw. His hair, which looked as if a tempest had just blown through it, was of the same dark colour, and he futilely ran a hand through it to try to tame it into submission. He wore the same short dun-coloured tunic and green breeches that Luke had seen on him at his last visit.
Capie peered sleepily at the visitor and groaned as soon as he recognised who it was. 'God's guts, Keeper, don't you know it's Easter?' he complained.
'The king's business must be attended to every day, Capie,' he said pompously. 'I need to talk to you - right now!'
The tally-man looked anxiously over his shoulder at the open door, from where children's cries and his wife's exasperated scolding could be heard.
'Not in there. It's bloody chaos with those brats,' he muttered. Scratching himself under both armpits, he came to the hurdle and lifted it out of the way, then replaced it quickly as the goats tried to escape.
'Come over here, if you must,' he suggested grudgingly and led the way over towards the nearest storehouse. He leant on one of the large doors and scowled at Luke de Casewold and his clerk. 'So what is it you want to know so urgently that brings you here to disturb me on this day?'
The Keeper glared at him for speaking rudely to a royal officer. 'I want to know if you have had a hand in any irregular dealings in this port, Capie. I strongly suspect that much of the cargo that goes both inwards and out of here escapes the tax due to the royal Exchequer! '
The tally-man folded his arms and glowered back obstinately. 'I do my best, but I can't be expected to watch every crate and keg that is landed or loaded! This wharf extends for almost three furlongs, and you can see for yourself how many vessels might be here at any one time.'
He flung up an arm to encompass the line of cogs leaning against the river bank. 'If the king or his damned ministers want to collect every half-penny of Customs dues, then they had better employ a couple more tally-men, for I can't cope with it all!'
His aggrieved tone sounded more than a little false to Luke, as Capie had never complained to him or the sheriff about getting additional help. However, the Keeper was craftily working around to a more sinister problem than Customs evasion and adopted a more conciliatory approach.
'That may well be true, Capie, so tell me how you go about your work. That ship there, for instance: how would you deal with that when she arrives?' He pointed to the nearest cog, which seemed deserted at the moment.
Mollified, John Capie explained that as soon as a new arrival moored herself to the stout tree-trunks buried along the bank, he would question the shipmaster as to the name of the vessel, where she had come from and what the nature of the cargo was. Being unable to read or write, he would remember this and hasten up to the portreeve's house to tell him of the new arrival, while the ship prepared to unload her contents on to the quayside. Capie would then return and, with a selection of knotted strings and hazel rods that he notched with a knife, would keep count of the items that were carried down the gangplank.