Free The Elixir of Death by Bernard Knight

large outer ward was defended by a bank topped by a stout wooden palisade and contained most of the garrison and their families, living in a motley collection of huts and sheds.
    The inner ward was protected by a castellated wall cutting off the uppermost corner of the old Roman fortifications. John walked across this towards the keep, a two-storeyed building in the far corner, beyond the Shire Hall, which was the courthouse for the city. The only other stone building there was the tiny garrison chapel of St Mary.
    De Wolfe tramped through the mud churned by horses, oxen and soldiers' boots into a slippery brown paste, until he reached the wooden steps going up to the entrance to the keep. As a defence measure, this was set high above the undercroft, a gloomy basement partly below ground level which housed the cells of the castle gaol. The upper doorway gave directly on to the hall, a large chamber occupying most of the main floor, the remainder holding a few rooms for the sheriff and castle constable. The floor above was a warren of stores, offices and living accommodation for clerks and more senior servants.
    John looked around the crowded hall and its scattering of tables where men were talking, eating and drinking. Although it was late in the day, more were standing in groups or tramping impatiently about waiting for an audience with clerks and officials. A big log fire smouldered in an open hearth against one wall, the smoke wreathing upwards to blacken the old ceiling beams even more. He acknowledged a few waves and greetings, then went to the first door on the left of the hall where a man-at-arms in a leather cuirass and round iron helmet with a nose-guard was leaning against the wall. As soon as he saw the coroner, he sprang to attention, banged the butt of his spear on the ground in salute and opened the door for John to enter.
    Inside, he found the sheriff, Henry de Furnellis, beleaguered behind a table covered with rolls and parchments. Candles and rush-lights were lit on the table and in sconces around the walls. A clerk hovered beside him, waving more documents for the sheriff's attention.
    'Thank God for an interruption!' boomed de  
    Furnellis. 'Sit down and give me an excuse for a drink and a respite from these bloody rolls.' As Henry was no more literate than John, his clerks had to read him every word and transcribe any responses from his dictation, as Thomas de Peyne did for the coroner.
    John was quite familiar with Henry's chamber and went to a shelf to fetch a large jug of cider and two pewter mugs. He filled these and placed one before the sheriff, before dragging up a stool and sitting down on the opposite side of the table. They both took deep draughts of the cloudy fluid, then Henry gave a sigh of satisfaction and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. 'I needed that, John! The county farm has to go to Winchester next week and these accursed clerks are driving me mad with their accounts.'  
    The 'farm' was the twice-yearly payment of the taxes collected from Devonshire and had to be taken in coin personally by the sheriff, to be accounted for by the clerks of the royal exchequer. The two men talked for a few moments about the state of the local economy and the fears they had that the next farm might be much reduced, if the coming harvest was as bad as could be expected after this foul summer. Though Exeter itself was booming from its trade in tin, wool and cloth exports, most of the population elsewhere in the county lived off the land and were ever vulnerable to the effects of the weather.
    De Furnellis reached across to refill their tankards. At sixty, he was almost two decades older than John, another old soldier who had been rewarded for his years of faithful service by being appointed as sheriff. In fact, this was the second time he had been sheriff of Devon, as early the previous year John's brother-in-law had been appointed, but owing to suspicions of his favouring Prince John's rebellion,