The Manor of Death by Bernard Knight Read Free Book Online

stone-tiled roofs.
    'These are storehouses for goods either brought in or waiting to be loaded on to the ships,' said Luke helpfully. 'Though that one is the fish market.'
    He pointed to an open-fronted shed where a dozen men and women were gutting fish and dropping them into baskets. The estuary here was wide and open to the sea, and on the other side the villages of Seaton and Fleet also had small ships beached along their banks. Nearer the sea, which shimmered in the distance in the early-afternoon sun, John could see pebble and shingle banks around a tiny island set off the shore at Seaton.
    As they walked, John saw that some parts of the water's edge had been strengthened by stone, forming wharves where the cogs could be tied up at high tide and supported when it dropped, so that loading and unloading could be carried on more easily. Elsewhere, at low tide, the vessels leant over a little on their keels, but still the crew and other labourers managed to hurry up and down planks laid to the shore with their sacks, bales and kegs. It was a busy scene, with some of the cargoes being stacked on the ground or loaded into the many ox-carts that trundled back and forth. Still more was being moved in and out of the warehouses on the other side of the track, and John was particularly interested in one that was half filled with bales of wool. Many of these were being carried across the road to a larger ship, to be stacked in the single hold that gaped in the middle of her deck.
    The tall, gaunt figure of the king's coroner received many curious stares from both the porters and seamen. His hunched figure, dressed all in black, was an unusual sight on a harbour wharf, especially as he was accompanied by a ginger giant with a large sword. The Keeper of the Peace aroused no interest, as he had been a frequent and usually unwelcome visitor to Axmouth since his appointment.
    They walked the length of the quayside and continued for almost half a mile down to where the estuary met the open sea, beneath the cliffs of the headland rising on their left. It was a calm day, and only low waves rippled in across the wide harbour mouth, petering out as they travelled upstream.
    'This place would look mightily different in a westerly gale,' observed Gwyn, his maritime past making him a confident expert. 'But these vessels would be safe enough, especially if they moved further upriver if it got really rough.'
    De Wolfe grunted. He was not much interested in the ships, but rather in their crews. 'That corpse must have been a seaman, dressed as he was,' he ruminated aloud. 'We should make some enquiries of some of these shipmasters.'
    'Checking on gossip in the alehouses might be the quickest way,' suggested his officer, ever keen to find some excuse to enter a tavern. The only tavern John was keen to enter was the Bush in Exeter to see his mistress, but that was twenty miles away.
    'You go, then, Gwyn; see what you can discover. I'll have words with a few of these shipmen and we'll meet in the village in an hour.'
    With the Keeper still in tow, he loped back to the cog that was loading wool, as Gwyn vanished across the road to a shack that had a wilting bush hanging over the doorway. The blunt vessel was leaning a little towards him, but men were padding across from the storehouse over the road, each with a large bale of wool on his back, securely trussed with coarse twine.
    As they clambered up the gangplank to the deck, a man in a russet tunic and green breeches stood at its foot, staring at each load and muttering to himself.
    'Who's this fellow?' grunted de Wolfe.
    'That's John Capie,' answered Luke de Casewold. 'He's the tally-man who reckons up the Customs dues though I suspect that far more gets past him than he records!' he added cynically.
    John looked more closely and saw that the sallow-faced Capie had a long cord in his hands, which had a multitude of knots tied along its length. As each man hurried past with his burden, his fingers moved