The Devil's Domain

the eyes but they remained half-open, gazing sightlessly upwards. He took a rag from the wash bowl, carefully wiped the woman’s mouth and chin then glanced round. The taverner and his daughter, goodly folks, stood in the doorway.
    ’It’s not your fault,’ Athelstan said. ’Where’s the woman’s baggage?’
    The taverner opened a coffer at the foot of the bed and brought out a pair of saddlebags. The contents comprised nothing but a change of clothing, shoes and a small purse containing a few silver coins. Athelstan handed two of these to the taverner.
    ’For your trouble,’ he offered. ’Sir John, where will the corpse go?’
    ’Once we have viewed it, since it is summer,’ the coroner replied lugubriously, ’she must be buried quickly. Send your tap boy,’ he told the taverner, ’to the Harrower of the Dead. You know who he is?’
    The taverner swallowed hard and nodded.
    ’Before you go,’ Athelstan said. ’A few questions. When did this young woman come here?’
    ’Yesterday afternoon.’
    Athelstan gestured at the corpse. ’And she was dressed like this, a blue taffeta dress?’
    ’No,’ his daughter replied. ’She was wearing travel garb, a brown smock tied at the neck and a kirtle beneath. She gave me these to wash, they are in the laundry house now.’
    ’Then what?’ Athelstan asked. He smiled. ’Oh, your name?’
    ’Margaret. I came up here. She was a young gentlewoman. She said she had travelled from Dover .’
    ’And?’
    ’By the time I came up she had changed. She gave me the clothes and said to have them washed and dried; the cost was to be put on the final reckoning. I asked if she wanted something to eat or drink. She refused so I left.’
    ’And her horse?’
    ’A brown-berried palfrey,’ the taverner said. ’Still in the stable below, saddled and harnessed.’
    ’Continue.’ Athelstan sat on the bed at the side of the corpse.
    The taverner shuffled his feet.
    ’Well, the hours passed. My daughter became concerned but the door was locked and bolted from the inside. So Tobias the tap boy climbed up from the stable yard.’ He spread his hands. ’I then sent for the coroner. I was going to cut her down but I know the city regulations: the corpse must be left as you’d find it.’
    ’Good man.’ Sir John took a sip from his wineskin.
    ’I assure you, sir, we have touched nothing nor have we taken anything from this poor girl. I know nothing of her death.’
    ’And no one visited her?’
    ’Not even this young man here?’ Athelstan pointed at Sir Maurice.
    ’He was in the taproom,’ Margaret replied. ’Cradling a blackjack of ale and looking very woebegone but, to my knowledge, he never came up here.’
    ’Nor asked to see Anna Triveter?’ Athelstan asked.
    Margaret shook her head.
    ’Very well.’ Sir John drew himself up. ’Master Taverner, this is the corpse of the young woman who came here?’
    ’It is, my lord coroner.’
    ’And you have taken nothing from the corpse or her belongings?’
    ’No!’
    ’Very well.’ Sir John turned to Sir Maurice. ’Sir Maurice Maltravers, knight banneret of His Grace the Duke of Lancaster, do you recognise this corpse?’
    ’No, sir, I do not.’
    ’Have you, or did you, have dealings with her?’
    ’I did not.’
    ’On your oath?’
    ’On my oath, Sir John, I had nothing to do with her in life and I certainly had nothing to do with her in death.’
    ’Then this is my verdict,’ the coroner declared. ’Anna Triveter, supposed inhabitant of Dover , did feloniously kill herself on Saturday evening, 29th August in the year of Our Lord 1380. Right!’ He clapped his hands. ’Now we’ve got that over. Master Taverner, you may keep all the woman’s possessions, including her clothing, her horse and silver. When the Harrower of the Dead collects her corpse, you must arrange for honourable burial in the paupers’ graveyard at St Mary-Le-Bow and pay for a chantry priest to sing five Masses before the Feast of the Epiphany next. On your oath do you accept?’
    ’I do, my lord coroner. But...’
    ’What’s the matter, sir?’
    Athelstan trusted the taverner, who had a broad, honest face, a family man who’d acted honourably. Many an innkeeper would have filched the silver and claimed the horse had been stolen. The taverner wet his lips.
    ’Well, Brother. I now recognise you. You are Athelstan, aren’t you, from St Erconwald’s in Southwark? Watkin the dung-collector sometimes comes here!’
    ’I am