The Sanctuary Seeker by Bernard Knight Page A

complained.
    ‘You are never at home, seeing to our affairs and keeping me company.’
    John’s gaunt face reddened above the black stubble on his unshaven chin.
    ‘ ‘Twas you pushed me into the damned job, woman.
    Didn’t you plead with your brother and the Bishop to petition Hubert Walter on my behalf?’
    The sheriff looked from one to the other, a smug expression on his lean features. He enjoyed a good row between his relatives.
    ‘Of course I wanted you to have the appointment, you clod of a man. Did you think I wanted you be a crude soldier all your life, lumbering about the country waving a sword?’ She hauled herself out of the chair and stood threateningly in front of her husband, hands propped on her bulging hips. ‘You needed decent employment - like a law officer high in the county, where you wouldn’t shame me with your soldier’s ways. Something appropriate to our position -a king’s knight and a sheriff’s sister!’ She advanced another step towards him and even the redoubtable John moved back a little along the fireplace.
    ‘By Mary Mother of God! John de Wolfe, be glad you have such a post. I don’t want you skulking around, like some unemployed squire waiting for a new war -or, even worse, sinking to become some merchant or trader. Could I ever hold my head up then?’
    The veins on his forehead bulged and the Coroner slapped his hand violently on the stone of the fireplace.
    ‘It’s always you, you, you!’ he shouted. ‘Damn what I might want as long as you can walk in a new gown in the portreeve’s procession or in the judge’s train, flaunting your airs and graces!’
    He kicked at a log violently, sending a shower of sparks dancing up the wide chimney, and ignored her brother’s smirks.
    ‘You should make up your mind, wife!’ John fumed.
    ‘One moment you want me to be a county coroner, then you complain that I spend too much time doing the job!’
    Matilda’s podgy cheeks coloured under the layer of powder. ‘Don’t you shout at me! Why did you agree to accept the crownership, then, if you’re so set against it?’
    ‘I didn’t say I was against it … though, by God, it’s a hard task sometimes. I did it to please you or, at least, to avoid your endless nagging. It keeps me occupied as you’re so set against me going off to fight - where any man with guts would wish to be,’
    he added, with a pointed look at his brother-in-law.
    Richard’s condescending good humour faded at this. ‘You well know I’ve this old wound in my side, suffered in King Henry’s service - it plagues me continually.
    But for that I would, of course, be following Coeur de Lion in Normandy.’
    John had his own ideas on that, but even the heat of a family dispute was insufficient to bring it out now he was keeping it for a more rewarding opportunity.
    Matilda, however, was still in full spate. She had subsided heavily into her chair, but continued to wag a beringed finger at her glowering husband. ‘I suggested the coronership for your own pride and status in Exeter, John. I had no intention of you taking on most of the county of Devon as an excuse for you to go galloping over hill and dale every hour God made! ‘John turned angrily and bent over his wife.
    ‘You know well enough what happened, Matilda, and you were greatly pleased at the time, for it puffed up your image in the county as well as the city.’
    The Article of Eyre had demanded that three knights and a clerk be appointed to form a coroner’s service in each county. John de Wolfe had been summarily elected by the burgesses as their city coroner.
    His crusading connections with both the King and Hubert Walter had ensured that he was a prime candidate. In truth, the coronership was not much sought after, as it was unpaid. In fact, coroners had to have a private income of at least twenty pounds a year: a rich man would have no need to resort to corruption as the sheriff’s had. As the job was so unattractive, only one other