The Sanctuary Seeker by Bernard Knight

brother-in-law, lolling in the other chair. Though sibling to Matilda, his face was as long and lean as hers was broad, but he had the same cold blue eyes.
    ‘Good day, Sir Sheriff, though I’m not your law officer. I answer directly to the King, who appointed me.’
    Sir Richard de Revelle sighed, assuming a pitying smile as if indulging a naughty child. ‘Of course, John, of course! Though faint chance you have of ever reporting to our good King - or even of seeing him.
    I hear reliable reports from France that he intends never again to set foot in England.’
    Matilda snorted. ‘And very good sense he shows, too. If I had my wishes, I’d not stay a day longer in this miserable rain-sodden country, full of Saxons and Cornishmen.’
    In her youth she had once spent a few months in Normandy with relatives and had played ever since the martyred role of a reluctant Norman exile, though she had been born in Exeter and had spent nearly all her life in Devon.
    John had heard it all a score of times, but familiarity did not lessen his exasperation. ‘The King may not be in Winchester or London, but he’s still the sovereign of this land, Richard. And we remain his officers, wherever he is.’
    The sheriff’s face, with its thin dark moustache and small pointed beard, kept its patronising smile.
    ‘Agreed, brother, and I’m sure you need no reminding that I am his representative in this country. What the Justiciar was thinking of when he meddled with this coroner business in September I still cannot fathom.’
    John was not overburdened with patience and although the argument was familiar, the other’s sneers were like a red rag to a bull. ‘I’ll tell you why, once again, brother-in-law. It was because the sheriffs were milking too much of the revenue due to the Exchequer into their own purses. Hubert Walter has had the good sense to set someone trustworthy in each county - the coroners - to keep a record of what’s due.’
    De Revelle waved this aside with a languid flip of his hand. ‘Nonsense, John. You should know the truth better than any man, having been with Richard when he was taken in Austria. It was to raise the huge ransom that Henry of Germany demanded for him. Our wily Hubert dreamed up this scheme to screw even more cash out of the long-suffering populace.’
    There was more than a grain of truth in what the sheriff said, and it touched John on a sore spot: his conscience still pricked him for not having saved his king from capture near Vienna, two years ago. As a knight in Richard’s army, he had left the Holy Land with the King’s retinue in October 1192, leaving Hubert Walter, now Chief Justiciar and Archbishop of Canterbury, in command of the remaining English force. During the voyage, which included shipwreck and attack by pirates, John proved such a staunch protector to his king that Richard took him into his personal bodyguard. The king had decided to return home by sailing up the Adriatic and travelling overland through Bohemia. Several times evading capture, he was eventually trapped in an inn at Erdberg, just outside Vienna. At the time John had been out with Gwyn, searching for fresh horses, and for ever after blamed himself for not having been on hand to fight for his royal master. Richard was imprisoned for a year and a half, first by Leopold of Austria, who sold him on to Henry VI of Germany. Eventually a ransom of a hundred and fifty thousand marks was agreed, a terrible burden for England, which had already been stripped by Richard to finance his army for the Third Crusade and later his campaign against Philip of France.
    However, his loyalty to Richard the Lionheart forced John to deny his brother-in-law’s argument and they bandied words for several minutes, neither willing to agree that the other was partly correct.
    Matilda had tired of these political joustings in which she could take no part. ‘You use your coronership as an excuse to be away at all hours, John!’ she