lease ran out then and it was bought for this college, whatever that place might be.'
Thomas could never resist airing his knowledge of anything remotely academic. 'It's one of these new schools that are springing up in some cities - Oxford was the first, but a few other places are now aping Paris and Bologna.'
'I thought schools were where young boys and girls learned to read and write,' offered the more philistine Gwyn, picking shreds of pork from his teeth. 'Like the one in Winchester where you got into trouble, Thomas,' he added slyly.
The clerk's pinched face coloured immediately. 'I was totally innocent, as you well know - you great Cornish clown,' he retorted, with a sharpness that was unusual for him. Now that he had been vindicated of the allegations that had got him ejected in disgrace from the priesthood, he was even more sensitive than before about having the matter brought up.
'Who's this man Anglicus they call Magister?' asked Nesta.
'He's the fellow who runs the establishment, the prime teacher there, though I understand there are two others under him,' explained de Wolfe. 'But what amazed me was to find that my dear brother-in-law actually owns the place - and no doubt puts the profits into his purse.'
Thomas nodded eagerly, his annoyance with Gwyn forgotten. 'He may be on to a good thing, such schools are becoming popular now. Some have sprung up in Northampton and Norwich, but the best-known outside Oxford is here in Exeter, where the poet Joseph Iscanus is magister.'
'So what do they teach, if it's not reading and writing?' asked Nesta.
'How to smoke corpses, by the looks of it!' scoffed Gwyn, getting another scourging glare from Thomas.
'Here it would be the trivium,' the clerk expounded, his own enthusiasm as a teacher spurring him on. 'The three great subjects, Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic. If the school succeeds, then later they may go on to the quadrivium, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy and Music - and even Physic.'
Impatient with this academic lecture, the coroner turned to his officer and demanded to know if he had any news about the dead man.
'There's no gossip at the four taverns I visited earlier to suggest anyone's missing,' said Gwyn dolefully. 'The trouble with a big city like Exeter is that folks come and go every day, and no one takes any notice.' He paused to take a huge draught of ale, before continuing. 'In a manor, the tithings keep a strict watch on each member and every villager knows every other freeman and villein but here, you can walk in and out of the five gates and unless you're driving a pig or pushing a barrow, no one says a word to you.'
The coroner turned to Thomas de Peyne. 'What about you? Any whispers amongst you holy men?' As well as being his clerk, the little man .had part-time employment in the cathedral, teaching some of the choristers to read, working on the archives in the scriptorium and saying early masses for the wealthy deceased who had left annuities for perpetual prayers. It gave him a good opportunity to keep his ear to the ecclesiastical ground, as he was probably the most inquisitive man in Devon. However, today he had drawn a blank in respect of the murdered corpse from the forge.
'Nothing at all, Crowner,' he admitted sadly. 'From the appearance of his clothing, I think he was a tradesman or merchant, rather than anything to do with the cathedral Close, though of course there are plenty of lay people associated with the running of the diocese.'
With an admonition to them both to keep trying on the following day, John lazily stood and, with a wink at Nesta, said he was going out into the backyard of the inn to unburden himself of some of his ale against the fence. Gwyn and Thomas knew from experience that this was their cue to leave and reluctantly tore themselves away from the firepit to go out into the cold night air of Idle Lane, where Thomas set off for the room which he shared with a vicar-choral from the cathedral and the Cornishman made